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McGill,  Alexander  T.  1807. 
1889. 

Church  government 


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CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 


A  TREATISE 


COMPILED  FROM  HIS  LECTURES  IN  THEO- 
LOGICAL SEMINARIES. 


BY 

ALEXANDER  T.  McGILL, 

Emeritus  Professor  at  Princeton. 


"Christ  also  loved  the  church,  and  gave  himself  for  it." 


PHILADELPHIA : 

PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD   OF  PUBLICATION 

AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL  WORK, 

1334  CHESTNUT  STREET. 


COPYRIGHT,   1888,  BY 

THE  TRUSTEES  01''  THE 

PRESBYTERIAN   BOARD   OF   PUBLICATION 
AND  SABBATH-SCHOOL   WORK. 


ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED. 


Westcott  &  Thomson, 
Sl&reo/t/pers  and  Electrolypers,  Philada. 


PREFACE. 


The  substance  of  over  forty  years'  teaching  on  church 
government  is  condensed  in  the  following  pages.  These 
teachings  were  not  the  same  through  all  generations  in 
course  at  the  seminary,  but  varied  in  form  and  extension 
from  time  to  time  in  order  to  face  the  changing  aspect  of 
controversy  in  this  field  of  study,  where  so  many  questions 
are  open  still,  and  problems  which,  though  settled  once, 
are  unsettled  again.  A  tardy  compliance  with  formal 
petitions  of  successive  classes  to  have  my  lectures  pub- 
lished will  perhaps  exhibit  much  that  was  not  heard  in 
the  class-room  by  any  one  particular  class,  and  much 
may  be  remembered  that  seems  to  be  omitted  here. 
But  all  may  discern,  I  think,  that  there  has  been  no 
change  of  principles  in  the  granite  foundation  of  my 
own  convictions,  laid  by  the  Bible  as  interpreted  by 
Westminster  literature  of  the  seventeenth  century,  and 
the  reproduction  thereof,  with  lucid  and  masterly  ex- 
position, by  Drs.  John  M.  Mason  and  Samuel  Miller, 
in  the  first  half  of  this  century. 

Of  course  I  am  indebted  to  these  and  like  sources  for 
many  a  thought,  and  the  assimilation  is  now  so  complete 
that  it  cannot  be  solved  or  assigned  to  this  and  that 
derivation.  But  I  write  as  a  teacher  more  than  as  an 
author,  and  the  intelligent  reader  will  see  that  the  man 
who  stands  by  his  standards  in  attempting  to  teach  "  the 

3 


4  PREFACE. 

generation  following"  must  give  what  he  has  received 
rather  than  what  he  has  contrived.  I  claim  invention 
of  order  more  than  of  thoughts  and  words,  independence 
in  managing  the  premises,  guiding  the  conclusion  and 
handling  the  logic  of  events. 

God's  word  is  my  text-book,  and  its  lines  referred  to 
are  quoted,  for  the  most  part,  in  full  on  these  pages  to 
save  the  reader  time  and  trouble  in  pondering  citations. 
Certain  words  and  phrases  must  be  capital  in  such  a 
book  as  this ;  they  are  used  as  keys  continually  to 
indicate  the  scope,  design  and  distinctive  nature  of  such 
a  work.  These  are,  in  this  case,  "  representation," 
"organization,"  "private  judgment,"  "spiritual  des- 
potism," and  the  like.  So,  also,  there  must  be  some 
repetition  of  idea  in  the  application  of  the  same  thought 
to  another  side  of  the  main  subject  or  a  subsequent  step 
in  the  same  movement.  Yet  redundancy  in  this  way 
will  hardly  be  observed  when  the  reader's  mind  is  fairly 
occupied  with  the  consecutive  drift  of  an  argument. 

Words  from  the  inspired  Scripture  are  sometimes  in- 
serted in  the  original  form,  especially  Greek ;  but  these 
are  accompanied  with  translation,  and  in  such  a  connec- 
tion as  to  be  understood  by  readers  not  acquainted  with 
that  ancient  language.  For  my  readers  will  see  through- 
out the  volume  that  ruling  elders,  whether  learned  or  un- 
learned, are  a  leading  order,  in  the  writer's  judgment,  to 
be  understood,  instructed  and  animated  with  ever-increas- 
ing concern. 

Alexander  T.  McGill. 

Princeton,  1888. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Introduction 7 

CHAPTER  I. 
There  is  a  Form  Given 25 

CHAPTER  II. 
ECCLESIA 48 

CHAPTER  III. 
The  Ecclesiastical  Institute 80 

CHAPTER  IV. 
Constituency  of  the  Church 96 

CHAPTER  V. 

Constituency  of  the  Church  (continued) Ill 

CHAPTER  VI. 
Officers  of  the  Church 143 

CHAPTER   VII. 
Prelatical  Succession 173 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

The  True  Doctrine  of  Succession  in  the  Ministry  .   .   .  201 

5 


6  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

PAGE 

Permanent  Officees  of  the  Chukch  ....       219 

CHAPTER  X. 
Parity  of  Ministers 243 

CHAPTER  XL 
Ruling  Elders 277 

CHAPTER  XII. 
The  Qualifications  of  Ruling  Elders 334 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Deacons 360 

CHAPTER  XIV. 
Ordlsation  to  Office 402 

CHAPTER  XV. 
Judicatories 433 

CHAPTER  XVI. 
Judicatories  in  Gradation 455 

CHAPTER   XVII. 
Constitutional  Importance  of  the  General  Assembly  .   .  507 

CHAPTER  XVIII. 
Ordinances  of  the  Church 523 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  main  embarrassment  of  Christianity  is  a  conflict 
within  between  the  forms  and  the  substance  of  true  re- 
ligion. Forms,  however,  in  such  contrariety  must  be 
false  and  alien,  so  far  as  they  distort  a  fair  expression 
or  clog  a  free  propagation  of  the  truth  revealed  in  the 
word  of  God.  For  the  moulds  of  divine  evangelism 
can  be  no  more  opposed  to  its  meaning  than  the  natural 
configuration  of  the  human  body  can  be  unfavorable  to 
the  development  of  life  and  the  activities  of  the  soul  in 
its  habitation  here.  Therefore,  to  have  discrimination 
fitted  for  the  day  in  which  we  live,  and  to  cultivate  our 
talents  for  a  seasonable  service  in  defence  of  the  gospel, 
we  should  learn  assiduously  what  are  the  forms  of  polity 
which  God  approves  as  best  for  the  purity,  permanence 
and  glory  of  his  kingdom  on  earth. 

We  should  beware  of  indiiferentism  here,  and  that 
extreme  simplification  which  would  eliminate  body  and 
figure  from  the  elementary  conception  or  ultimate  idea  of 
the  Church  in  the  world.  Because  we  confront  the  tra- 
ditional arrogance  which  makes  her  altogether  visible  in 
time,  we  are  not  to  err  at  the  opposite  extreme  of  notion 
that  she  is  nothing  to  speak  of  in  one  visible  form  more 
than  another ;  that  her  mission  to  man  in  the  body  has 
no  body  itself  in  the  contact  of  persuasion  ;  that  visible 
ordinances  are  only  conventional  forms  of  quietism,  and 

7 


8  INTRODUCTION. 

the  communion  of  embodied  humanity  with  an  invisible 
Head  in  heaven  must  be  impalpable  as  the  rounds  of 
Jacob's  ladder  in  the  vision  of  a  dream. 

Fancy  like  this  in  generalization  reverses  the  tenor  of 
sacred  history,  which  made  the  mystical  precede  the  real, 
and  typical  theophanies  go  before  the  actual  incarnation 
of  our  Lord.  And  when  the  Word  was  made  flesh, 
calling  himself  "  this  temple,"  for  our  eyes  to  see  and 
our  hands  to  handle,  can  we  say  that  his  Church  he 
came  to  "  build  "  is  a  phantom  in  definition  and  not  to 
be  seen  henceforth,  in  its  right  shape  for  Jew  or  Gentile, 
as  anything  else  than  a  babel  of  every  pattern,  without 
even  an  outline  prescribed  by  him  or  his  apostles? 
Carried  even  to  the  invisible  things  which  are  made, 
this  lax  imagination  reckons  absurdly  on  the  whole 
creation  that  is  not  seen  as  chaotic  and  void  of  organiza- 
tion. Invisible  gravitation  organizes  a  visible  universe. 
Magnetic  attraction  and  electric  power  make  forms  and 
movements  of  manifest  order,  in  many  things  visible 
and  used,  with  which  organized  life  is  ever  progressing. 
And  shall  these  energies  of  nature  do  more  to  regulate 
ordinary  life  than  the  power  of  grace  and  truth,  which 
came  by  Jesus  Christ,  to  make  a  becoming  visibility  in 
the  Church  they  create  ?  There  is  a  "  temple "  to  be 
thought  of  in  the  abode  of  spirits  on  high — organism,  of 
course,  in  the  Church  invisible  and  triumphant,  accord- 
ing to  the  Apocalypse  of  prophecy — where  there  is  no 
temple  to  be  seen.  The  immanence  of  that  eternal  Spirit 
who  garnished  the  heavens  at  first  is  there  essentially 
active  in  organizing  alike  what  is  seen  and  what  is  not 
seen. 

Christ,  who  is  formed  within  us  the  hope  of  glory,  had 
a  body  like  ours  prepared  and  given  to  him,  and  what  was 


INTRODUCTION.  9 

given  to  hira  he  gives  to  the  Church  he  redeemed.  "Body, 
soul  aud  spirit"  are  sanctified  by  union  to  him.  And  the 
mystical  incorporation  of  which  he  is  Head  must,  of  course, 
be  seen  and  unseen  both,  and  organization  made  alike,  in 
the  visible  and  invisible  constitution  of  such  an  exist- 
ence. Morover,  the  most  radical  idea  to  be  formed  of 
this  incorporation  is  in  the  analogy  of  our  bodies  and 
members — the  eye,  the  ear,  the  hand,  the  foot — the  in- 
terdependence of  these  and  their  common  relation  to  the 
head  as  well  as  to  each  other,  and  the  whole  complexity 
a  perfect  organization.  The  most  elementary  conception 
of  the  Church,  therefore,  must  be  inadequate  and  too 
simple  to  be  true  which  leaves  organism  out.  Error  is 
always  more  simple  thau  truth.  And  the  rage  for  sim- 
plicity, which  turns  the  Church  to  a  dogma  for  the  sake 
of  a  clear-cut  definition,  will  hazard  the  loss  of  her 
nature  as  it  is  revealed  in  the  Scriptures  and  ascertained 
in  all  history  and  observation. 

Abstractions  will  never  define  and  mysticism  will 
never  unite  the  Church.  Her  nature  is  concrete.  The 
gospel  is  a  religion  of  facts,  and  the  revelation  which 
contains  it  is  history  more  than  philosophy  promulged 
for  the  redemption  of  man.  We  must  go,  therefore,  to 
the  Bible  for  the  delineation  we  seek  and  the  discussions 
we  propose.  The  word  of  God  in  both  Testaments  will 
give  us  a  unit  of  organism  in  the  features  of  an  ever- 
lasting Church  "  which  in  continuance  were  fashioned," 
and  this  no  "  shadowy  model."  When  the  shadows  of 
type  and  ceremony,  priesthood  and  altar,  sacrifice  aud 
incense,  were  made  to  pass  away  at  the  fulness  of  time, 
and  we  look  to  Jesus,  with  his  apostles,  to  "  show  us  the 
form  of  the  house  and  the  fashion  thereof,"  we  see  it  in 
their   conduct,  example    and    teaching.     We   see   them 


10  INTR  OD  VCTION. 

going  to  church,  recognizing  the  substance  when  the 
shadows  were  fleeing  from  "the  true  light  which  lighteth 
every  man  that  cometh  into  the  world." 

Dr.  Charles  Hodge  has  well  said  in  What  is  Presby- 
terianism  f  that  "  the  Church  is  a  self-governing  society 
distinct  from  the  State,  having  its  officers  and  laws,  and 
therefore  an  administrative  government  of  its  own  ;" 
"  it  is  a  theocracy  "  "  limited  and  guided  by  the  Script- 
ures" "in  the  hands  of  legitimate  officers."  Such  a 
description  of  the  Church  on  earth  suffices  to  indicate 
organization  as  a  predicate  thereof — first  and  last,  visible 
and  invisible,  "  the  ultimate  idea "  as  well  as  primary 
and  elemental.  Objectively  considered,  it  is  form  and 
order  positively  instituted ;  subjectively  considered,  the 
faith  which  unites  us  to  Christ,  the  Head,  unites  us  to 
one  another  as  members.  This  union,  both  visible  and 
invisible,  must  of  course,  be  organized  by  regulations  of 
mutual  duty  emanating  from  the  Head  himself. 

"  The  true  light "  which  came  in  the  advent  of  Christ 
at  the  incarnation  of  his  person  was  no  torch  of  revolu- 
tion, nor  even  flame  of  reformation,  to  the  progress  of 
man,  consuming  the  arches  behind  which  spanned,  as  it 
were,  an  abyss  between  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New. 
It  was  the  "  sun  of  righteousness  "  by  which  we  could 
see,  descended  and  descending,  past,  present  and  future, 
an  orgcanized  ecclesia  waiting;  for  its  own  conversion  to 
the  Christian  faith.  Subsisting  through  all  varieties  of 
patriarchal,  judicial  and  regal  theocracy  for  ages,  and  at 
length  manned  with  Jewish  bigotry,  it  was,  nevertheless, 
a  peculiar  machinery  of  order  found  intact  and  suitable 
for  all  the  purposes  of  Christianity  while  time  endures. 
It  is  designed  in  the  following  pages  to  prove  the 
recognition  and  continuance  of  this  plan  by  the  founders 


INTRODUCTION.  11 

of  the  New-Testament  Church  as  a  liberal  form  of  gov- 
ernment well  tried  and  safe  not  only,  but  a  conspicuous 
link  for  identity  of  the  Church  under  all  dispensations 
and  diversities  of  ministration  by  the  same  Spirit — pro- 
phetically and  exegetically  and  ecclesiastically  one  and 
the  same  Church.  Elderships  of  old  became  in  apostolic 
times  the  true  "  historical  episcopate  "  of  the  Christian 
Church.  Elders  and  deacons  alone  made  up  the  min- 
istry of  orders  in  primitive  time,  as  the  sacred  records 
attest,  making  elder  and  bishop  convertible  terms  for 
one  and  the  same  office. 

It  was  not  in  the  scheme  of  salvation  designed  that  an 
interval  between  the  Testaments  should  become  a  chasm 
in  the  external  history  of  redemption  more  than  the  in- 
ternal. It  was  in  all  respects  a  "  fulness  "  of  institution 
as  well  as  of  doctrine,  and  the  only  change  to  be  made 
■was  the  abolition  of  prefigurative  appointment  in  the 
temple  and  its  threefold  ministry,  with  all  the  ceremony 
and  ritual  that  belonged  to  "  a  shadow  of  good  things 
to  come."  "  The  very  image  "  of  these  good  things  was 
now  to  be  seen  in  the  sanctuary  of  prayer  and  instruction 
where  our  Lord  and  his  disciples  were  brought  up  to 
worship,  and  where  they  began  to  preach  and  teach 
without  ever  a  word  of  fault  found  with  the  method 
of  service  and  organization.  And  when  they  were  cast 
out  from  the  meetings  there  by  majorities  of  unbelieving 
elders  and  people,  they  organized  precisely  similar  meet- 
ings and  modes  familiar  to  the  people,  calling  them 
churches.  The  testimony  of  Jesus  remained  with  these 
when  his  own  work  was  done.  The  great  commission 
was  consigned  to  these,  and  elders  came  to  the  front 
for  its  tradition. 

There  never  was  a  time  when  the  students  of  revealed 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

religion  might  consistently  overlook  a  "  pattern  shown  in 
the  mount"  or  neolect  to  search  with  carefulness  and 
zeal  for  the  true  model  to  which  our  Lord  would  have 
the  visible  constitution  of  his  Church  conformed.  At 
the  reformation  from  popery,  next  to  the  doctrine  of 
justification  by  faith,  the  cardinal  questions  of  that 
revival  turned  on  principles  which  underlie  the  study 
before  us.  Even  the  rule  of  faith  could  not  be  ascer- 
tained and  vindicated  against  the  corruptions  of  Rome 
without  asking,  "  What  is  the  Church — her  headship, 
her  membership,  her  charter,  her  authority  and  her 
mode  of  transmission  ?''  In  short,  all  the  materials  to 
be  gathered  and  shaped  in  the  structure  of  church  gov- 
ernment lay  at  the  basis  of  that  happy  reconstruction  of 
the  Christian  Church  in  which  we  have  an  evangelical 
system  restored  and  established. 

But  the  great  Reformers,  like  mighty  men  who  guard 
the  trophies  of  a  battle  carelessly  after  all  the  waste  of 
blood  and  treasure  in  obtaining  them,  were  too  indifferent 
among  themselves  about  the  best  forms  of  polity  inde- 
pendent of  the  State  and  most  becoming  and  conducive 
to  the  work  of  a  ransomed  Church.  For  the  right  of 
private  judgment  and  the  word  of  God  in  the  hands  of 
the  people  and  the  priesthood  of  all  believers  and  the 
symbolical  sense  of  sacraments  they  were  valiant  and 
uncompromising,  but  for  complete  emancipation  from 
the  traditionary  union  of  Church  and  State  in  govern- 
ment, from  the  canonical  bondage  to  superstitious  liturgies 
and  mitred  prelates,  there  was  little  or  no  enthusiasm  and 
much  questionable  consistency.  Luther  allowed  a  domi- 
natino:  hierarchv  in  Denmark  ;  Calvin  allowed  the  same 
in  England ;  and  the  contagion  of  their  indifference  over- 
spread the  first  Reformation  and  descended  to  the  gen- 


INTRODUCTION.  13 

eratious  following  as  a  genesis  of  deistical  doubt  respect- 
ing all  the  positive  institutes  of  revealed  religion. 

For  natural  religion  of  itself  can  have  no  consecrated 
forms.  Clear  and  universal,  and  even  authoritative,  as 
its  dictates  may  be  interpreted  by  man,  there  is  no  frame- 
work for  the  conscience  in  which  they  can  be  set  without 
legislation  above  us.  Conventional  universality  itself 
were  bootless  without  the  Deity  on  high  giving  it 
sanction,  with  positive  ordinations  in  forms  of  embodi- 
ment which  contain  revelation  by  word  as  well  as  by 
work.  Positive  religion  only  can  live,  while  positive 
philosophy  must  die.  When  Robespierre  in  his  political 
sagacity  saw  that  atheism  would  prevent  for  ever  the  re- 
construction and  consolidation  of  the  social  system  in 
France,  he  induced  the  Convention,  which  had  abolished 
the  forms  of  revealed  religion,  to  ordain  certain  institutes 
of  natural  religion — the  existence  of  a  God  and  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  as  dogmas,  and  orations  to  be  de- 
livered and  hymns  to  be  sung  in  honor  of  the  Deity  at 
stated  times  or  decades,  ten  days  instead  of  seven  for  the 
week — as  the  ceremonial  of  this  infidel  renascence.  Fif- 
teen or  twenty  churches  of  Paris  were  opened,  funds 
were  appropriated  from  the  national  treasury,  and  much 
enthusiasm  was  kindled  among  "  theophilanthropists," 
as  they  were  called.  But  it  scarcely  endured  one  year  ; 
it  had  no  warmth  nor  force,  and  its  few  admirers  quit 
with  fatigue  and  disgust ;  and  in  less  than  two  months 
after  the  "  festival  of  the  Supreme  Being "  its  high 
priest  suffered  death  at  the  guillotine.  Churchly  forms 
are  therefore  a  standing  peculiarity  of  revealed  religion, 
positive,  sacred  and  simple,  as  becomes  the  majesty  of 
God  himself,  demanding  our  attentive  study  and  strenu- 
ous conservation  as  they  are  given  to  us  in  his  word. 


14  INTR  OD  UCTION. 

The  opposite  extreme,  however,  is  regained  in  our 
day  by  natural  reaction  and  the  sensuous  proclivities  of 
our  own  religious  nature  in  its  taste  and  sentiment. 
Forms  have  triumphed  over  creeds,  have  petrified  en- 
thusiasm, substituted  Nicene  for  apostolic  Christianity, 
and  would  now  summon  all  diversities  of  faith  and 
practice  to  a  rubrical  union  with  the  title  "  Protestant " 
omitted. 

In  England  the  day  of  Roman  Catholic  emancipation 
was  the  birthday  of  Puseyism.  That  achievement  of 
liberal  policy  was  less  the  result  of  justice  to  the  op- 
pressed than  lax  indifference  to  existing  forms  of  security 
provided  for  the  established  religion  of  the  kingdom. 
Political  ambition  had  done  it,  and  the  Church  was 
alarmed.  A  mighty  conservative  zeal  was  awakened 
which  spread  through  all  Protestant  ranks,  from  the 
humblest  vicarage  of  the  realm  to  the  throne  of  William 
IV.  But,  unhappily,  this  great  indignation  fell  under 
the  guidance  of  a  State  religion  stalled  and  mitred  in- 
stead of  a  general  assembly  of  churches  represented 
fairly.  Oxford  Tractarianism  was  enlisted,  and,  as  in 
mediaeval  time,  the  hope  of  true  Christianity  turned  to 
the  universities  for  counsel  and  help — in  vain,  and  worse 
than  in  vain. 

The  learned  Oxonians  issued  their  tracts,  antagonizing 
Rome  on  her  own  chosen  ground  of  historical  develop- 
ment and  post-apostolical  formation.  They  sought  eagerly 
to  find  out  a  Catholicity  more  catholic  and  antiquity 
more  ancient,  and  discovered  their  Augustan  age  in  the 
days  of  Oonstantine  and  the  ecumenical  councils  which 
followed  rather  than  the  days  of  Christ  and  the  testi- 
mony of  his  apostles.  Thus  prelacy  waked  only  to 
slumber  again,  and  tliat  more  deeply.     The  upper  level 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

on  which  it  entered  to  throw  up  defences  against  the 
aggressions  of  degenerate  Romanism  was  but  the  patri- 
mony of  papists,  the  quarry  of  tlieir  foundations,  and 
not  a  stone  could  be  had  for  breastwork  against  them 
which  had  not  been  secured  for  their  own  use  and 
shaped  for  the  tradition  of  ritual  and  pomp,  cathedral 
pride  and  spiritual  despotism.  Puseyism  soon  quashed 
the  indictment  which  her  own  logic  had  written,  and 
now  writes  out  a  legacy  to  Rome  against  even  the 
British  Reformation,  This  comes  of  extravagant  for- 
malism, which  makes  the  outward  organization  too  much 
for  the  inward  life  and  historical  tradition  more  essential 
than  godliness  and  truth. 

If,  then,  we  had  no  other  lesson  on  the  subject  than 
these  ruinous  variations  of  sentiment — verging  one  while 
to  the  line  of  iufidel  indifference,  and  another  while  stif- 
fenina:  and  tnrnincr  back  to  the  rubbish  and  mummeries 
of  papal  superstition — we  are  sufficiently  admonished 
now  to  make  the  polity  of  the  Church  a  diligent  study 
more  important  than  ever.  No  minister  of  Christ  who 
is  set  for  the  defence  of  the  gospel  can  avoid,  without 
unfaithfulness,  the  duty  of  contending  for  the  casket  as 
well  as  the  jewels  it  contains,  the  body  as  well  as  the 
soul  in  spiritual  cure,  the  visible  as  index  of  the  invisible 
organization,  the  comj)lexity  of  matter  and  mind  in  that 
pathology  of  human  life  in  which  creation  and  redemp- 
tion together  consult  for  the  supreme  well-being  of  man- 
kind. 

Truth,  in  this  department  as  in  others,  will  be  found 
a  just  mean  betwixt  opposite  extremes.  One  of  these  is 
that  there  must  be  a  certain  organization  of  the  Church 
so  legitimate  and  essential  that  there  is  no  valid  ministry 
and  no  covenanted  salvation  without  it.     The  other  is 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

that  uo  form  of  polity  is  given  us  in  Holy  Scripture, 
and  we  are  authorized  to  shape  it  altogether  by  the  cir- 
cumstances in  which  we  are  placed  and  the  opportunities 
of  our  own  expediency.  The  former  is  popish  and  pre- 
latical  doctrine  ;  the  latter  is,  for  the  most  part,  the  tenet 
of  non-historical  and  reactionary  bodies  that  have  emerged 
from  hierarchical  oppression  in  different  ways  and  on 
different  occasions  with  protest  which  carried  them  too 
far,  without  discrimination  between  a  divine  sanction 
and  the  perversion  of  it  which  they  repudiate. 

As  we  take  our  stand  on  middle  ground,  we  see  the 
right  order  of  study  inverted — unwisely,  though  not 
unwittingly — by  the  priesthood  we  oppose.  They  con- 
tend that  a  knowledge  of  the  Church  is  first  and  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  all  religious  knowledge.  Comprehend- 
ing this  traditional  thing  in  the  form  they  offer  it  to  faith, 
we  have,  it  is  said,  the  iufallibJe  clue  to  all  other  subjects 
within  the  range  of  theological  pursuit.  A  similar  mis- 
take, however,  is  chargeable  to  the  opposite  extreme,  of 
postponing  all  acknowledgment  of  the  Church  until  the 
truth  is  found  out  for  ourselves  and  a  regenerate  mem- 
bership is  gathered  to  compose  the  body.  For  the  true 
Church  is  a  "  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth  "  to  be  seen 
and  read  of  men  as  soon  as  they  see  the  inscription  upon 
it — an  authorized  constructure  whose  genuineness  is 
tested  by  the  word  it  publishes.  We  are  born  within 
its  pale  and  baptized  on  that  account,  and  added  to  its 
full  communion  on  credible  profession  of  a  saving 
change.  And  thus  even  a  primary  education  in  the 
knowledge  of  truth  is  a  study  of  the  Church  all  along, 
and,  whatever  else  she  may  be  in  polity  and  profession, 
her  true  accessions  are  never  to  be  called  "  an  army  of 
raw  recruits,"  as  Wesleyans  were  once   reproached  by 


INTRODUCTION,  17 

English  churchmen.  Simultaneous  with  revelation  it- 
self has  always  been  the  figure  of  a  Church — "  her 
seed/'  as  in  the  first  promise,  "  holy  city,"  as  in  the 
last  description. 

Returning  for  a  little  here  to  the  other  extreme,  we 
lose  antiquity  and  origin  itself  in  the  pretension  of  a 
Church  to  be  known  before  the  truth  and  where  in- 
fallibility of  learning  reposes.  The  lesson  and  the  school 
begin  together.  Before  Abraham  was  Christ  was,  and 
where  Christ  was  the  Church  his  body  was,  in  word  and 
type  and  prophecy  inscribed  upon  her  pillar.  Even  then 
she  was  known  by  the  inscription  upon  her,  with  divine 
purpose  and  never  at  all  by  the  commandments  of  men 
except  as  a  fallen  pillar.  The  Church  was  part  of  the 
truth  and  the  truth  was  declared  by  the  Church  from  the 
beginning,  and  these  two — so  distinct,  but  inseparable — 
are  like  the  Urim  and  Thummim,  "those  oraculous  gems 
on  the  breastplate  of  Aaron  "  which  are  still  so  conjec- 
tural in  signification,  though  not  obscurely  rendered  by 
the  Vulgate  translation  :  dodrlna  et  Veritas.  Or,  if  Ave 
say  with  others  that  "  light  and  perfection  "  is  the  sense 
of  the  mysterious  emblems,  we  have  the  same  thought 
of  sinmltaneous  and  intertwined  duality  contemplated  in 
all  Bible  reading.  "Arise,  shine  ;  for  thy  light  is  come, 
and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee ;"  "  Out  of 
Zion,  the  perfection  of  beauty,  God  hath  shined."  Where 
truth  does  not  shine  from  the  oracles  of  God  explained, 
a  Church  is  extinguished ;  where  a  Church,  so  called, 
hides  her  light  under  a  bushel,  barters  the  truth  away 
for  place  or  po])ularity  or  power  in  secular  conformity, 
she  totters  to  a  fall. 

The  Fathers  in  the  first  four  centuries  had  a  glimpse  of 
this  fact  that  neither  before  the  truth  nor  after  the  truth, 

2 


1 8  INTB  OB  UCTION. 

but  with  the  truth  as  part  of  its  own  revelation,  to  be 
seen  only  in  its  own  light  and  estimated  only  at  its  own 
value,  is  the  Church  of  God.  Jerome,  in  his  commentary 
on  the  one  hundred  and  thirty-third  psalm,  says:  "The 
Church  does  not  consist  of  walls  or  visible  things,  but  of 
the  truth  of  dogmas ;  there  the  Church  is  wherever  true 
faith  exists."  Augustine,  in  his  treatise  on  the  unity  of  the 
Church  (lib.  10,  cap.  3),  says :  "  Let  us  not  listen  to  what  I 
say  or  to  what  you  say,  but  to  what  the  Lord  saith ;  for 
surely  there  are  divine  books,  and  in  regard  to  their  au- 
thority we  must  agree  to  every  one,  believe  in  every  one, 
obey  every  one.  There  must  we  seek  the  Church,  there 
must  we  order  and  try  our  cause."  This  patristic  postu- 
late we  accept,  and  propose  to  seek  the  Church  only  in  the 
Holy  Scriptures,  and  therefore  abreast  with  every  other 
study  in  sacred  learning.  Correlated,  combined  and  per- 
vading every  other  department — not  excepting  interpreta- 
tion, of  course — must  be  this  element  of  ecclesia  as  alike 
containing  and  contained  without  being  either  superlative 
or  disparaged  in  the  curriculum  of  a  theological  seminary. 
The  polemists  of  hierarchy  allege  that  theirs  is  a 
shorter  way.  Taking  the  Church  in  our  arms  at  first 
with  implicit  faith  in  tliat  unerring  tuition  she  promises, 
we  are  led  in  all  convenient  seasons  at  once  to  the  truth 
we  need  to  know,  whereas  in  the  search  we  make  for 
truth  by  the  exercise  of  private  judgment  we  are  thrown 
into  perpetual  doubt  or  a  maze  of  conflicting  opinions 
which  cannot  be  settled  in  such  liberty  and  only  vex  the 
truth  by  close  investigation.  This  plea,  which  has  im- 
posed upon  the  simple  and  the  ])rejudiced  so  long,  is  a 
bundle  of  arrogant  assumptions  begging  every  question 
it  proposes  and  hushing  every  question  we  ask.  It 
assumes  what  no  exercised  conscience  will  ever  concede 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

— that  God  has  committed  infallible  tuition  to  fallible 
men,  superseding  the  use  of  his  own  word  and  the 
agency  of  his  Spirit  in  spiritual  knowledge.  Revelation 
says  nothing  of  any  great  teacher  but  Christ  himself, 
who  is  "  the  way,  the  truth  and  the  life,"  and  of  the 
Church  existing  before  he  came  in  the  flesh  it  says, 
"  Christ  loved  the  church  and  gave  himself  for  it,  that 
he  might  sanctify  and  cleanse  it,  with  the  washing  of 
water  by  the  word."  Through  all  the  ages,  old  and 
new,  the  atonement  of  Jesus  alone  suffices  to  cover  in- 
firmities of  the  Church  as  well  as  of  individual  members, 
and  the  baptismal  affusion  for  this  purpose  can  be  effect- 
ual "  by  the  word  "  without  the  priest.  Reason  finds  no 
analogy  to  justify,  or  even  color,  the  precedence  of  an 
institute  for  teaching  what  men  know  nothing  about 
independently  of  its  existence.  Tradition  itself  confutes 
the  claim  and  uniformly  exhibits  the  Church  apart  from 
the  word  of  God,  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  as  a  cloud 
of  darkness,  taking  awav  the  kev  of  knowledo-e,  and  so 
hindering  men  from  entering  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

Besides,  this  antecedent  position  of  the  Church  in 
Christian  erudition  gives  no  thread  of  escape  from  con- 
flict of  opinions  in  a  labyrinth  of  speculation  walled  and 
subterraneous.  What  she  is  and  where  she  is  and  how 
she  came  to  such  ascendency  are  questions  never  settled 
in  the  contentions  of  history.  Two  large  divisions  of 
nominal  Christendom,  Greek  and  Roman,  are  separated 
from  each  other  still  in  disputing  the  claim  of  supremacy 
in  Catholicism,  and  Avithin  the  fold  of  the  latter — near 
to  us  for  observation,  and  called  Western,  or  Latin — we 
can  find  in  her  own  annals  and  see  in  our  own  streets  a 
diversity  of  sect  or  sodality,  male  and  female,  greater 
than  all  the  divisions  of  Protestant  Christianity.     Wo 


20  INTRODUCTION. 

read  of  Augustinians,  BeDedictines,  Carthusians,  Cister- 
cians, Clunincensians,  Dominicans,  Franciscans,  Janseu- 
ists,  Jesuits,  and  quarreling  among  themselves  with  more 
bitter  animosity  than  ever  did  evangelical  divisions  of 
Lutheran  and  Reformed  branches  respectively ;  and  the 
more  frivolous  the  distinctions,  the  more  spiteful  the 
fight,  which  all  the  fear  of  a  pope  could  not  repress. 
Bossuet's  Variations  has  been  surpassed  by  Edgar's 
Variations  of  Popety.  The  conclave,  the  council,  the 
university,  and  the  emperor  have  never  yet  agreed 
quiescently  on  the  current  legitimacy  at  Rome,  and 
yet  these  are  all  factors  iu  supporting  that  school. 

Succession,  however,  in  this  claim  of  prior  teaching, 
between  the  learner  and  the  lesson,  to  dictate  before 
assimilating  truth  is  yet  more  distracted  in  searching  its 
line  and  digging  for  buried  links  which  history  has  lost 
and  tradition  asserted.  The  fossils  found  are  all,  of 
course,  without  those  articulations  of  life  which  first  aud 
quickly  decay.  The  mode,  the  man,  the  time,  the  place, 
the  means  and  the  intention  which  belonged  to  every 
coronation  of  a  pontiff,  investiture  of  a  bishop  and  ordi- 
nation of  a  priest  must  be  recovered  and  assured  before 
the  soul  is  safe  on  this  vain  assumption  of  teaching, 
which  is  accompanied  with  no  revealed  truth  in  the 
hands  of  a  learner  to  test  its  soundness  and  give  it 
authority  in  learning.  Hero,  of  course,  a  deej)  and 
shoreless  sea  of  conjecture  will  drift  opinion  without 
helm  or  compass  aud  without  end.  Surely  apostolical 
virtue  never  embarked  on  such  succession  or  adventured 
on  such  waves. 

We  are  to  study  the  Church,  therefore,  as  a  part  of 
revealed  trutli,  aud  not  merely  as  the  depository,  the  in- 
terpreter, the  expedient  and  the  missionary  of  truth.     It 


INTRODUCTION.  21 

is  all  these,  indeed,  because  the  word  of  God  has  ap- 
pointed it  in  such  relations ;  but  the  same  appointment 
has  embodied  all  these  uses  and  the  leading  features  of 
its  organization  and  its  proportionate  value  as  a  doctrine 
in  the  same  symmetry  of  ordination  that  has  made  rev- 
elation complete  and  all-sufficient  in  its  provisions  for 
the  salvation  of  men.  There  is  no  unchurching  in  this 
completeness  of  any  variety  preferred  to  ours  by  any 
branch  of  true  evangelism,  for  just  as  the  doctrines  are 
held  with  charity  the  Church  is,  in  our  system.  Infalli- 
bility is  left  out  and  utterly  disclaimed.  Strong  denomi- 
national convictions,  when  well  enlightened,  are  strong 
enough  to  stand  rejoicing  in  the  truth  when  bearing  all 
things,  believing  all  things,  hoping  all  things  and  endur- 
ing all  things  in  the  great  co-operation  to  which  we  are 
called.  Even  visible  and  organic  unity  is  near  when  our 
camp  is  entrenched  within  the  lines  of  inspired  revela- 
tion. Outside  of  these,  on  the  open  campaign  of  contingent 
influences  and  human  contrivance,  we  cannot  even  hope 
to  be  organically  one,  however  vast  the  importance  of 
attempting  it  may  be ;  and  to  submit  for  a  basis  of  ex- 
ternal union  a  tradition  which  is  not  divine,  a  relic  of 
unreformed,  or  half-reformed,  Christianity,  calling  it 
apostolic  because  it  is  old,  is  to  postpone  the  unity 
wished  for  with  increased  aversion  wherever  God's  word 
is  known  as  the  supreme  directory. 

We  do  not  undervalue  church  history  when  thus  find- 
ing church  government  in  the  Scriptures  alone.  Its 
eventfulness  is  a  great  help  on  our  path  in  fulfilling 
prophecy  and  depicting  for  a  lamentation  the  backsliding 
of  primitive  faith  and  order  from  the  apostolic  model  to 
Jewish  hierarchy  and  pagan  su})erstition.  And  its  de- 
velopment of  periods — first  in  the  Athanasiau  soundness 


22  INTR  OD  UCTION. 

of  theology  which  vindicated  the  absolute  divinity  of 
Him  who  is  our  Head,  and  next  the  Augustinian  breadth 
of  church-membership  in  the  salvation  of  parents  and 
children  alike  by  absolute  grace,  and  next  the  "  purpose 
and  grace  which  was  given  us  in  Christ  Jesus  before  the 
world  began,"  making  justification  by  faith  without  the 
works  of  the  law  the  article  of  a  standing  or  falling 
Church  in  the  soteriology  of  the  Reformation.  All  the 
historical  settlements,  contribute  help  and  lend  facility 
of  peculiar  advantage  to  the  study  of  ecclesiology,  and 
especially  the  department  of  governmental  polity.  This 
last  is  "  the  present  truth  "  in  which  nearly  all  the  un- 
solved problems  of  Christianity  are  to  be  found,  and 
progressive  theology  must  here  turn  back  to  the  Bible 
for  a  better  start  again  than  records  of  history  or  con- 
sensus of  creeds  can  ever  give  it  in  advance. 

Not  only  time,  but  place  also,  will  aid  our  study  in 
this  department.  The  great  analogies  of  civil  polity  in 
this  republic  have  been  reciprocal  indeed  and  borrowed 
largely  from  the  antecedent  model  made  in  the  Jerusa- 
lem Chamber  at  Westminster,  with  the  Barrier  Act  in 
Scotland  appended.  The  general  government  of  this 
nation  and  the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church  went  into  action  at  the  same  time  without  any 
union  between  them  other  than  the  same  principles  of 
representation  on  which  they  had  been  reared  together, 
in  freedom  alike  from  monarcliical  and  hierarchical  op- 
pression. However  diverse  in  their  contemplated  origin 
— the  one  coming  from  Christ  alone,  and  the  other  from 
numerous  constituencies  of  the  people — they  meet,  with 
singular  identity,  in  representative  government,  showing 
that  representation,  like  our  only  Mediator,  is  both  human 
and  divine. 


lyTRODUCTION.  23 

The  total  separation  between  Church  and  State,  wliich 
all  our  constitutions  require ;  the  complexity  of  aspect 
and  interaction,  at  once  tribal  and  central,  particular  and 
general,  State  and  nation,  a  constellation  of  sovereignties, 
each  one  distinct  in  sphere  and  all  revolv^ing  round  a 
common  orb,  the  will  of  the  governed  representatively- 
expressed, — these  are  with  us  ever  to  be  studied  as  both 
sacred  and  secular  in  their  importance.  The  balance  of 
power,  in  its  three  branches  of  legislative,  judicial  and 
executive  authority,  is  d liferent  on  the  sacred  side,  where 
the  judicial  in  great  measure  absorbs  the  other  two,  which 
are  a  divine  code  unalterable  by  man  and  a  spiritual  en- 
forcement only  moral  in  the  execution.  The  resemblance 
and  the  variety — both  so  familiar  and  so  venerated  for 
the  sake  of  our  fathers,  who  won  them  as  a  heritage  for 
us — invite  us  to  the  contemplation  as  patriotic  ministers 
of  the  gospel.  Social  science,  bodies  politic,  infidel  con- 
federacies and  spasms  of  anarchy  demand  our  attention 
as  ecclesiastical  students,  now  and  here,  engaging  an 
ardor  of  discrimination  and  opportunities  of  making  it 
which  are  without  a  parallel  among  the  ages  and  the 
nations.  And  surely  Christian  sociology — "  the  keys  " 
for  all  systems,  the  standard  for  all  comparisons — should 
be  studied  well  in  the  grant,  the  authority,  the  relations 
and  the  scope  of  an  organization  which  vital  piety  has 
always  found  a  fitting  habiliment  of  truth  as  it  is  in 
Jesus, 


CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN. 

"  TT  is  absolutely  uecessary  that  the  government  of  the 
J-  Church  be  exercised  under  some  certain  and  definite 
form,"  says  our  own  Constitution.  An  absolute  necessity 
must  have  been  provided  for  by  Him  who  gave  the 
Church  existence  and  engaged  to  make  her  catholicity 
"  perfect  and  entire,  wanting  nothing."  Unity  in  variety 
is  the  creation  of  grace  as  well  as  goodness  in  all  the 
work  of  redemption.  When  we  agree  to  differ,  the 
platform  of  this  agreement  must  be  fixed — all  the  more 
as  difference  preponderates  in  the  separation  from  one- 
ness. If  nothing  be  fixed  in  fundamental  tie,  if  no 
form  in  substance  can  be  found  as  ballast  on  the  ocean 
of  time,  there  is  no  historical  Church  to  be  seen,  and 
fragments  only  bestrew  the  waste  around  us.  We  steer 
between  opposite  extremes.  We  shun  as  a  mountain  of 
ice  that  huge  infallibility  which  curses  departure  in  any 
variation,  and  we  avoid  with  equal  concern  those  floating 
wrecks  which  come  from  what  had  been  contrived  with- 
out a  model  ascertained  in  God's  word  and  approved  by 
the  experience  of  ages. 

The  divine  right  we  recognize  in  church  government 
is  a  right  of  the   people  to  govern   themselves  by   an 

25 


26  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

autliorized  represeutation  of  God  to  man  in  preaching 
and  of  man  to  God  in  praying  ;  but  on  tlie  side  of  the 
people  imperfection  will  always  make  a  diversified  con- 
formity, and  this  diversity  should  not  make  division, 
and  will  not  if  we  fairly  appreciate  the  essential  features 
of  that  norm  which  God  has  given  us  in  revelation. 
The  contingencies  of  circumstance,  the  stages  of  culture 
in  its  progress,  the  varieties  of  taste  among  sincere 
believers,  tradition,  habit,  and  even  love  of  change, 
may  justify  peculiarities  in  minute  details  of  worship 
and  service  of  discipline,  so  that  any  kind  of  polity 
may  be  folded  in  true  Catholicism  which  does  not  repress 
the  energies  of  Christian  life  with  mere  manacles  of  or- 
ganism, nor  unchurch  the  mystical  body  of  Christ  wher- 
ever it  is  not  called  by  a  particular  name. 

That  a  standard  which  may  thus  comprehend  many  in 
one  must  have  been  given  us  by  the  Head  of  the  Church 
himself,  instead  of  being  left  to  our  own  wisdom  to  frame, 
we  argue  a  priori — 

1.  Because  it  nuist  be  positive  rather  than  conventional 
in  its  appointment.  Such  only  can  withstand  the  aggres- 
sion of  any  false  method  in  fanaticism,  superstition  or 
spiritual  despotism.  The  neutral  or  negative  alone, 
however  free  and  voluntary  it  may  be,  does  yield  at 
length  to  the  pretensions  of  arrogance.  A  late  writer 
on  church  polity  opposed  to  any  claim  of  '*  divine  right" 
in  the  sanction  of  his  postulates  affirmed  that  within  the 
diocese  of  a  New  England  prelate  two  hundred  and 
seven  of  the  two  hundred  and  eighty  ministers  of  that 
region  were  conformed,  and  had  been  from  Congi'ega- 
tional  churches,  calling  for  serious  inquiry  on  this  and 
Bimilar  facts.  But  from  the  standpoint  of  our  view  the 
explanation  is  obvious.     The  tradition  of  prelacy  is  too 


THERE  rS  A   FORM  GIVEN.  27 

strong  for  tlie  freedom  of  independency.     Tlie  positive, 
though  even  i'alse  in  form,  will  prevail  against  indiffer- 
ence by  dint  of  assertion  and  persistence  alone.     The 
only  premises  on  which  arrogance  will  break  must  be 
divine   formations.     Life,  duration,   triumph,  are  here 
because  they  are  given  by  inspiration  of  God  along  with 
gospel  truth  and  a  part  of  this  truth — its  aptitude,  its 
machinery,  its  vehicle  and  its  appreciative  embodiment. 
2.  We  aroue  also  from  the  character  of  God  as  a  God 
of  order.     He  hath  set  our  Head  "  upon  his  kingdom  to 
order  it  and  establish  it  with  judgment  and  with  justice 
from  henceforth  even  for  ever,"  and  we  may  well  pre- 
sume that  some  constitution  of  order  is  meant  in  tlie 
administration  of  such  a  trust,  given  to  his  people  and 
not  left  to  their  uninspired   autonomy.     Order   in    all 
nature  is  his  "first   law."     Whether  we   look   abroad 
upon  the  symmetry  of  creation  at  large,  or   at  home 
on  the  smallest  arrangement  of  his  hand,  we  see  regula- 
tion designed,  both  mediately  and  immediately,  by  him- 
self.    And  can  we  believe  that  he  would  build  the  most 
favored  construction  of  his  hands  with  accident  and  con- 
fusion allowed,  as  men  left  to  themselves  have  always 
built  toward  heaven  since  they  were  confounded  on  the 
plains  of  Shinar?     If  we  believe  that  "the  Word"  in 
constructing  earth  and  heaven  by  the  simple  fiat  of  his 
power  would  consult  with  such  conspicuous  care  for  the 
outward  form  and  exact  relation  of  all  the  parts,  must 
we  not  conclude  that  the  same  supremely  prudent  Archi- 
tect has  been  careful  in  proportion  to  provide  some  def- 
inite outline  for  that  visible  government  which  required 
more  than  his  wisdom  and  power,  even  the  shedding  of 
his  blood,  to  found  it,  and  for  which  this  wide  creation 
is  but  a  transitory  platform  ? 


28  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

3.  The  same  is  presumed  from  the  character  of  Clirist 
as  Mediator.  "Head  over  all  things  to  the  Church," 
says  the  apostle  Paul,  in  strains  of  adoration.  This  ad- 
ministration of  that  providence  which  governs  the  world 
means  a  model  ordained  in  the  Constitution  of  the  Church 
for  all  other  forms  of  government  to  resemble,  promote 
and  cherish  with  the  resources  of  all.  It  is  a  beacon  to 
be  seen,  a  banner  to  be  displayed,  a  light  to  be  followed. 
This  objective  pattern,  which  must  be  all  these  through 
all  ages,  could  never  be  symbolized  by  man  without  the 
form  of  it  being  shown  upon  "the  mount"  of  revela- 
tion. Otherwise,  the  Pauline  aphorism  would  be  re- 
versed:  "He  is  Head  over  the  Church  to  all  things 
else"  in  subordinate  and  subservient  influence — to  make 
divine  right  for  kings  and  infallible  papacy  for  prelates. 
The  normal  dignity  of  our  "  Lawgiver "  is  effaced. 
Instead  of  Christ  we  shall  have  a  Constantine  to  model 
the  Church  after  the  fashion  of  his  empire  and  make 
her  the  tool  of  tyrants  and  the  guild  of  politicians 
through  every  age. 

The  supremacy  of  mediatorial  enthronement  forecasts 
the  future  of  all  administrations,  and  uo  visible  necessi- 
ties of  heredity,  environment  or  succession  exist  to 
modify  her  features  which  were  not  foreseen  and  pro- 
vided for  by  Him  who  changes  not  and  Avho  gives  to 
her  a  perpetuity  lasting  as  his  own.  There  must  be, 
therefore,  some  organic  law — or,  at  least,  organizing 
principles — found  in  his  word  to  antagonize  and  "over- 
turn "  the  fabrications  of  men  which  obstruct  the  prog- 
ress of  his  kingdom.  We  cannot  resign  the  prior  and 
mighty  influence  of  a  divine  polity  on  the  liberty  of 
men,  nor  admit,  without  a  treasonable  insubordination 
to  the  Head,  that  his  Church  may  become  as  readily  the 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  29 

handmaid  of  corrupt  and  despotic  rule  as  of  well-regu- 
lated freedom. 

4.  The  reciprocal  influence  of  forms  on  principles  and 
principles  on  forms  whicli  we  know  in  the  history  of 
human  affairs  is  another  point  presumed  in  our  argument 
here  as  we  contemplate  the  kingly  office  of  Jesus.  He 
who  is  "  the  truth  "  must  be  the  author  of  all  that  is 
true  in  form  as  well  as  in  doctrine,  for  these  have  always 
been  observed  as  inseparable.  The  sacraments  were  cor- 
rupted and  justification  by  faith  was  lost  in  the  develop- 
ment of  hierarchy.  Never  did  usurping  despotism  more 
speedily  spoil  the  spirit  of  a  governed  people,  and  eradi- 
cate the  sentiments  of  true  liberty  and  justice,  than  did 
this  overshadowing  despotism  of  the  priest  subdue  and 
exile  from  the  Church  right  views  of  truth  and  holiness. 
Everything  in  her  system  that  elevates  the  man  hides 
the  Saviour.  The  very  name  of  priest  in  the  sacerdotal 
sense — never  given  to  ministers  of  the  gospel  in  the  New 
Testament,  and  only  imported  from  the  ruins  of  Judaism 
in  the  second  century — introduced  the  notion  of  altar  and 
sacrifice  continued,  and  this  corrupted  the  doctrine  of 
sacraments,  turning  "remembrance"  to  immolation  and 
seal  to  sacrifice  in  the  absurdities  of  a  missal.  It  were 
easy  to  show  at  length  in  the  light  of  history  how  pre- 
latical  forms  produced  anti-Christian  doctrines  and  led  a 
declining  Church  to  admixtures  of  Jewish  and  pagan 
ritual  for  the  "  untempered  mortar"  with  whicli  the 
sacerdotal  fabric  was  built. 

Ecpially  detrimental  to  the  soundness  of  saving  truth, 
and  even  the  liberty  with  which  Christ  has  made  us  free, 
is  the  opposite  and  comparatively  unhistorical  extreme 
of  anarchy  in  church  government,  claiming  that  no 
polity  is  given  in  the  Bible,  and  that  expediency  is  all 


30  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

we  have  by  divine  right  for  any  constructure  of  eccle- 
siastical form.  Observation  assures  us  that  false  doc- 
trines grow  up  like  a  thicket  in  all  such  ungoverned 
localities,  and  that  churchly  communism  will  choke 
even  its  own  freedom  with  vapors  of  tlie  worst  intoler- 
ance. The  reasonable  mean  betwixt  both  extremes  must 
be  that  our  divine  Headship  has  fixed,  without  vibration 
toward  either  extreme,  a  groundwork,  at  least,  on  which 
we  are  to  build  a  consistent  superstructure,  and  finish  it 
only  with  becoming  details  which  may  be  properly  dif- 
ferent in  different  places. 

5.  Explicit  appointment  of  God  in  the  Old-Testament 
Church  adumbrates  fairly  divine  authority  for  the  forma- 
tions ascertained  in  the  New.  The  New-Testament 
Church  is  like  the  Old  in  being  a  visible  kingdom  as 
well  as  invisible.  Determinate  shape  in  the  one  pre- 
sumes the  same  in  the  other.  The  enlarged  dimensions 
and  more  spiritual  nature  of  the  New  will  dispense  with 
minute  regulations  and  alleviate  the  fault  of  variations 
from  the  form  prescribed,  but  they  enhance  the  necessity 
of  some  constitutional  norms  given  by  the  divine  Founder 
of  both  dispensations.  We  can  readily  perceive  how 
governments  merely  human  will  dispense  with  minute 
legislation  when  the  nation  becomes  more  enlightened 
and  virtuous,  and  must  do  so  as  the  national  territory  is 
extended  ;  but  we  see  just  as  readily  that  corresponding 
to  the  generalization  of  law  and  constitution  for  many 
provinces  and  diverse  inhabitants  will  be  the  need  of 
fixedness  and  sacredness  in  the  polity  which  remains  to 
comprehend  all. 

Look  at  the  difference  between  the  constitution  of  a 
particular  State  and  that  of  the  general  government 
under  which  we  live.     The  latter  is  much  more  simple 


THERE  IS  A   FORM  GIVEN.  31 

and  comprehensive — not  merely  because  the  objects  to 
be  attained  are  not  all  the  ends  of  government  in  our 
complex  system,  but  because  of  the  wide  variety  of 
people  and  interests  included  under  its  authority.  Yet 
in  proportion  to  the  comprehension  and  fewness  of  its 
articles  must  be  their  precise  interpretation,  in  view  of 
the  superlative  import.  Legislation  by  the  State  often 
buries  a  constitution  from  our  sight,  and  we  sometimes 
yield  to  a  State  Legislature  the  scope  of  a  British  Par- 
liament to  make  law  and  constitution  both  in  our  acqui- 
escence. But  not  so  with  the  Constitution  of  the  United 
States :  the  wider  its  purview,  the  more  transcendent  its 
importance.  The  conflict  of  parties,  the  jealousy  of  sec- 
tions, the  floods  of  immigration,  the  diversity  of  races, 
the  spread  of  territory, — all  enhance  the  sacredness  and 
establish  with  the  utmost  precision  this  great  organic 
law. 

Here  we  have  analogy  enough  to  presume  a  divine 
constitution  for  the  visible  Church  of  New-Testament 
times.  If  when  the  limits  of  the  Church  were  a  soli- 
tary nation  the  form  of  her  government  was  ordained 
with  awful  sanction  by  her  Head,  now,  when  she  is  ex- 
pansive as  the  globe,  embracing  in  her  mission  every 
kindred,  nation,  tongue  and  people,  must  we  not  have  a 
similar  economy  provided  by  the  same  adorable  Suprem- 
acy ?  A  formulary  of  organism  it  is  which  threads 
together  all  dispensations  with  its  first  principles  of 
government,  suiting  all  times  and  })rogress  and  ex- 
pansion, confronting  antagonisms  with  charity — which 
"  beareth  all  things " — witliout  compromise  of  right, 
and  embracing  kindred  varieties  of  form  with  a  patienc^e 
that  ever  waits  for  the  ultimate  assimilation.  It  is  en- 
tirely gratuitous,  therefore,  to  conclude,  with  Neander 


32  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  others,  that  because  the  New-Testament  Cliurch  is 
enlarged  and  spiritual  in  her  nature  she  may  be  loose 
and  fluctuating  and  various  in  her  outward  structure. 
They  seem  to  forget  that  she  is  visible  as  well  as  spirit- 
ual in  her  enlargement,  and  must  therefore  abide  by  the 
laws  of  visibility  wherever  it  is  found  in  the  dominion 
of  God  and  his  Son — form  and  figure  impressed  authori- 
tatively by  the  Hand  that  gave  it  existence. 

These  implications  of  a-prion  argument  lead  us  now 
to  intimations  of  Scripture  that  a  form  of  government 
for  the  Church  has  been  revealed  as  well  as  presumed 
from  the  primary  teaching  of  true  religion.  The  reve- 
lation of  Messianic  prophecy  in  the  Old  Testament  will 
naturally  be  accepted  as  the  best  of  evidence  on  the  sub- 
ject. "  The  law  aud  the  prophets  "  are  familiarly  diverse 
in  drift,  though  one  and  the  same  in  their  final  cause. 
Therefore  we  have  the  force  of  concession  as  M^ell  as 
emphasis  when  we  find  the  two  gospel-prophets  of  old 
phrasing  the  personal  glory  of  Christ  and  the  structure 
of  his  ecclesia  to  come  in  terms  which  are  almost  techni- 
cally political  and  architectural.  Thus  Isaiah  (ix.  6,  7, 
already  cited):  "The  government  shall  be  upon  his 
shoulder,"  etc. ;  also  (chap,  xxxiii.  20-22),  "  Look  upon 
Zion,  the  city  of  our  solemnities ;  thine  eyes  shall  see 
Jerusalem  a  quiet  habitation,  a  tabernacle  that  shall  not 
be  taken  down ;  not  one  of  the  stakes  thereof  shall  ever 
be  removed,  neither  shall  any  of  the  cords  thereof  be 
broken.  But  there  the  glorious  Lord  will  be  unto  us  a 
place  of  broad  rivers  and  streams  ;  wherein  shall  go  no 
galley  with  oars,  neither  shall  gallant  ship  pass  thereby. 
For  the  Lord  is  our  judge,  the  Lord  is  our  lawgiver,  the 
Lord  is  our  king ;  he  will  save  us." 

This  remarkable  density  of  tropes,  municipal,  nomadic, 


THERE  IS  A   FORM  GIVEN.  33 

nautical,  military  and  governmental,  must  be  a  predic- 
tion of  something  visibly  formed  in  the  future  of  a 
visible  Church  :  "Look  upon  Ziou  ;"  "thine  eyes  shall 
see,"  etc. — not  the  eyes  of  the  seer  himself  only,  but  of 
the  people  addressed  in  every  age.  Of  course  the  spiritual 
protection,  safety  and  permanence  of  the  Church  invisible 
must  be  implied,  but  this  cannot  be  all  these  various  fig- 
ures intend,  nor  even  the  first  in  fulfilment.  The  rule 
of  interpretation  is  that  a  good  temporal  sense  must  be 
found,  if  possible,  before  \\q  annex  the  spiritual  sense, 
if  there  be  any.  Interpreting  is  not  spiritualizing  alone, 
nor  chiefiv.  The  latter  may  be  imajrination  without 
limit ;  the  former  is  the  exercise  of  common  sense  by 
the  tongue  of  the  learned.  We  may  well  conjecture  that 
common  sense  will  not  surrender  the  text  of  this  maff- 
nificent  ])rophecy  to  the  mystical  dreams  of  a  coming 
Church  witiiout  body  to  "  look  upon  "  or  "  eyes "  in 
herself  to  see  the  incorporation  here  delineated,  and  the 
marvel  of  "  a  tabernacle  that  shall  not  be  taken  down," 
which  never  could  be  seen,  before  the  advent  of  Christ 
in  the  flesh,  and  the  foundation  laid  by  "  apostles,"  as 
well  as  "  prophets,"  with  him  as  Headstone  of  the  corner. 
In  the  sense  of  invisible  catholicity  the  Church  never 
was,  and  never  can  be,  as  a  tent  to  be  taken  do\vn  and 
removed  with  its  cords  and  stakes,  in  the  nomadic  figure  : 
it  is  unchangeably  fixed  as  the  purpose  of  God  himself. 
She  is  graven  on  the  palms  of  his  bauds,  and  her  walls 
are  continually  before  him.  "The  foundati(m  of  God 
standeth  sure,  having  this  seal.  The  Lord  knoweth  them 
that  are  his."  It  must,  therefore,  be  a  visible  corporeity 
of  the  Church  in  well-adjusted  organism  that  is  foretold 
here  as  the  ultimate  estalilishment  on  earth  (Ezek.  xliii. 
11,  12):  "Show  them  the  form  of  the  house  and  the 

3 


34  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

fashion  thereof,  and  all  the  forms  thereof,  and  all  the 
ordinances  thereof,  and  all  the  forms  thereof,  and  write 
it  in  their  sight,  that  they  may  keep  the  whole  form 
thereof,  and  all  the  ordinances  thereof,  and  do  tiiem." 
The  redundancy  of  form,  fashion,  ordinance,  in  the 
singular  mention  of  this  prophecy  must  emphasize  the 
importance  of  some  future  polity  for  the  Church  con- 
formed to  a  pattern  or  principles  of  organization  given 
by  divine  inspiration. 

A  consensus  of  commentary  from  opposite  sides  of  us 
may  well  supersede  further  annotation  here.  Bishop 
Patrick  says :  "  These  words  may  import  that  the  model 
of  God's  temple  here  set  forth  is  but  a  pattern  of  heav- 
enly things,  as  Moses'  was,  and  a  type  of  that  pure 
Church  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the  apostles  and 
prophets,  Jesus  Ciirist  being  the  chief  corner-stone; 
which  we  may  hope  God  will  in  due  time  restore.  And 
in  the  mean  season  it  is  the  duty  of  all  good  Christians, 
according  to  their  abilities,  to  inform  themselves  and 
others  what  is  the  pattern,  form  and  fashion  of  this  true 
Church  of  God,  in  order  to  reform  all  those  deviations 
which  have  been  made  from  it."  On  the  other  hand, 
Dr.  Gill  says :  "  Here  is  the  prophet  personating  the 
apostles  of  Christ,  who  delivered  out  the  form  of  a 
gospel  Churcli-State  to  the  believing  ones  far  superior 
to  that  they  had  been  in,  and  into  which  they  entered — 
or,  rather,  personating  the  ministers  of  the  word  in  the 
latter  dav,  showinff  to  the  Christians  of  these  times  the 
order,  worship  and  discipline  of  a  pure  gospel-Church, 
who  have  been  greatly  deficient  in  their  observance  of 
them,  and  which  is  the  work  and  business  of  gospel- 
ministers  to  do  as  well  as  to  preach  the  doctrine  of  the 
gospel." 


THERE  IS  A   FORM  GIVEN.  36 

Scholiasts  like  these — one  a  hierarch  in  the  Church  of 
England,  of  whom  Burnet  said,  "  He  was  an  honor  to 
the  Church  and  the  age  in  which  he  lived,"  and  the 
other  a  Baptist  Independent  who  has  never  been  ex- 
celled for  learning  and  piety  in  his  denomination — 
should  lead  us  to  search  the  Scriptures  with  at  least 
hypothesis  ahead  for  the  leading  features  of  a  form 
divinely  given.  The  search  of  Scripture  which  our 
Lord  enjoined  will,  of  course,  include  the  inspired 
record  of  his  own  words  during;  his  ministry  on  earth. 
His  errand  here  in  the  flesh  being  to  fulfil  the  prophecies 
which  went  before  upon  him  as  the  substance  of  all  that 
had  foreshadowed  him,  the  only  priest  that  ever  lived  to 
mediate  and  atone,  an  advent  rather  to  supersede  and 
abolish  institutional  forms  which  were  "  handwriting  of 
ordinances"  that  were  against  the  liberties  and  best  wel- 
fare of  men, — it  was  not  "  expedient "  for  him  to  con- 
struct a  new  visible  Church  not  yet  gathered,  and  to  be 
gathered  and  organized  by  the  Spirit  of  God,  as  of  old 
actuating  and  guiding  his  disciples  to  continue  a  house 
of  prayer  and  instruction  "  for  all  people." 

And  yet  "never  man  spake  like  this  man"  the  first 
principles  of  ecclesiastical  formation.  The  union  of 
Church  and  State  was  virtually  disestablished  for  ever 
by  the  memorable  declaration,  "  My  kingdom  is  not  of 
this  world."  Even  the  formative  force  of  this  negation 
is  wonderful  when  fairly  applied  in  its  corollary  to  nearly 
all  the  historical  churches  of  Christendom.  Separate  the 
accretions  of  State  polity  from  time  to  time,  the  ambi- 
tions of  rank,  the  intolerance  of  tyrants,  the  turbulence  of 
revolution,  the  greed,  the  craft,  the  pride  and  the  servility 
entailed  by  such  corruption,  and  how  different  would  be 
the  body  and  form  of  ecclesiasticisra  to  the  eyes  of  men 


36  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  aDgels !  Church  history  would  be  to  all  genera- 
tions the  chronicle  of  grace  and  beauty,  instead  of 
being  annals  of  debasement  and  revolting  inconsist- 
ency. 

Another  negation  of  those  gracious  lips  should  level 
inequality  of  rank  within  the  commonwealth  he  came 
to  seek  and  save,  giving  to  the  social  system  a  brother- 
hood of  man,  both  parity  of  ministers  and  parity  of 
people,  entailing  a  polity  which  w^ould  make  a  priest- 
hood of  the  race  and  a  virtual  protest  for  ever  against 
ambitious  pride  of  rank  in  the  governments  of  men. 
Matt.  XX.  25-28  :  "  Ye  know,  that  the  princes  of  the 
Gentiles  exercise  dominion  over  them,  and  they  that  are 
great  exercise  authority  upon  them  :  but  it  shall  not  be 
so  among  you  ;  but  whosoever  will  be  great  among  you, 
let  him  be  your  minister,  and  whosoever  will  be  chief 
among  you,  let  him  be  your  servant."  (See  also  Mark 
X.  42-48.)  These  first  principles,  emphatically  uttered 
by  our  Lord,  were  his  nuncupative  will  to  faithful 
hearers  about  the  formal  disposition  of  his  inheritance, 
which  he  was  about  to  redeem  with  his  precious  blood. 
And  we  shall  see  what  a  germ  they  were  in  a  sequel  of 
development  by  his  apostles,  who  found  nothing  to  be 
added  but  what  was  to  be  derived  legitimately  from 
premises  and  warrants  contained  in  divine  words  before 
they  were  commissioned. 

After  the  apostles  entered  upon  their  great  work  of 
witnessing  for  the  ascended  Saviour  and  writing  out  the 
doctrines  of  his  grace  for  all  generations  to  come,  the 
features  of  church  form  are  all  indicated  as  divinely 
given  by  our  Lord  himself.  Even  the  minute  diversities 
of  manifestation  peculiar  to  that  initial  period  are  men- 
tioned as  given  of  God  by  the    use  of  a  Greek  word 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  37 

(idsTo)  which  undoubtedly  means  appointment  and  con- 
stitution by  the  sovereign  authority  :  "  He  hath  set  in 
the  Church/'  etc.  (See  1  Cor.  xii.  28.)  "  Governments  " 
are  distinctly  mentioned,  as  "set"  in  the  Church  by 
divine  appointment.  And  that  no  rigid  exactness  in 
government,  without  regard  to  the  circumstances  and 
effects  iu  administration,  can  be  intended,  the  apostolic 
ministry  were  authorized  to  govern  themselves  by  a 
sound  expediency  in  view  of  the  benefit  to  be  obtained 
and  injury  to  be  avoided.  Yet  no  expedient  of  man's 
devising  and  wisdom  of  inspired — and  still  less  un- 
inspired— observation  or  experience  should  dare  to  alter 
the  main  features  of  that  system  which  God  "  hath  set " 
in  the  Church — a  plural  number  of  elders  in  each  par- 
ticular church.  Inspiration  makes  that  plural  "gov- 
ernments." Popery  and  prelacy  would  say  "  govern- 
ment." Monopoly,  from  the  diocesan  to  the  pontiff,  is 
the  setting  of  man  if  not  in  revolt  or  apostasy,  yet 
surely  iu  departure  from  divine  constitution  and  words 
of  legislation  by  Christ  and  his  apostles. 

It  was  fairly  settled  in  that  long  controversy  concern- 
ing "things  indifferent"  which  greatly  agitated  churches 
of  the  Reformation,  that  nothing  can  be  so  regarded  which 
has  either  precept  or  example  bearing  on  it  in  Scripture. 
The  jus  cUvinum,  or  divine  right,  obtained  from  such  a 
source  will  be  obligatory  according  to  the  comparative 
importance  of  what  is  sanctioned  and  the  certainty  with 
wdiich  the  warrant  is  interpreted.  Forms  and  modes  are 
secondary  to  doctrines  in  importance,  and  uncertain  gloss 
upon  the  text  is  inferior  in  its  claim  on  the  conscience ; 
so  that  no  strength  of  Bible  proof  will  permit  our  im- 
perfect knowledge  to  unchurch  other  varieties  of  or- 
ganism and  usage,  or  claim  for  our  own  more  than  the 


38  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

advantage  of  better  edification  for  the  soul  and  greater 
animation  of  Christian  life.  Such  advantag-e,  however, 
is  immense.  When  "  we  see  through  a  glass  darkly" 
and  know  that  "  the  time  is  short "  and  the  call  impera- 
tive, divine  formations  made  ready  for  us  in  the  word 
are  like  the  sling  of  David  in  proof,  and  prudence  will 
find  them  always  to  be  the  quickest  and  safest  in  armor 
and  outfit. 

The  want  of  expHcitness,  express  and  exact  delinea- 
tion, in  what  we  quote  from  the  Avord  of  God  can  be  no 
presumption  against  the  pertinence  of  its  authority  in  the 
case,  but  rather  the  contrary.    For  this  accords  with  that 
relative  inferiority  of  form  which  belongs  to  the  nature 
of  our  faith.     If  the  warrant  for  a  Presbyterian  polity 
had  been  given  with  the  precision  and  stateliness  of  a 
formal  constitution,  in  the  language  of  analysis,  while 
the  doctrines  we  profess  were  left  as  they  are,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  synthesis,  to  be  laboriously  gathered  into  symbol 
by  rigor  of  the  understanding  and  charity  of  the  heart 
combined,  our  whole  system  had  been  the  reverse  of  what 
it  is.     Instead  of  being  a  religion  of  great  principles,  ever 
expanding  with  fresh  power,  it  would  have  been,  like  the 
traditions  it  has  exploded,  a  fixed  directory  of  particulars, 
without  versatility  or  adaptation    to   the   progress  and 
change  appointed  alike  to  the  Church  and  tlie  world. 
The  correspondence  we  trace  between  the  plenary  light 
of  doctrine  and  the  fainter  light  of  form  gives  to  the 
latter  an  authority  which  is  all  the  more  binding  because 
it  has  reason  and  proportion  in  its  place  on  the  pages  of 
revelation.     Modesty  of  pretension  will  never  prejudice 
a  claim  when  the  trial  is  fair.     Because  in  the  vagueness 
of  its  hints  it  disclaims  to  be  of  equal  moment  with  the 
truths  which  save  the  soul,  we  are  to  admire  it  the  more 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  39 

and  strive  to  establish  it,  over  the  whole  extent  of  its 
legitimate  claims. 

But,  after  all,  the  insufficiency  of  Scripture  to  give  us 
divine  right  for  any  particular  form  has  been  greatly 
overstated,  and  it  becomes  us  here  and  now  to  review 
briefly  the  points  made  and  proved  at  Westminister,  and 
api>roved  by  the  American  Church,  as  a  formative  series 
which  knits  together  in  one,  more  and  more,  the  different 
bodies  entitled  to  share  it  as  a  good  inheritance  from  their 
fathers. 

1.  We  have  divine  right  for  anything  that  is  explicitly 
commanded  in  the  Bible.  The  whole  warrant  of  tiie  g-os- 
pel  comes  to  us  with  such  indorsement:  "This  is  his 
commandment,  that  we  should  believe  on  his  Son  Jesus 
Christ."  When  "the  work  of  the  law  written  in  their 
hearts"  was  tabulated  by  revelation  on  Sinai,  it  became 
a  formula  of  command  requiring  by  divine  right  our 
obedience  in  heart  and  deed  for  ever.  There  is  no 
release  from  perpetual  obligation  to  the  commands  of 
Scripture  unless  the  dispensation  to  which  they  belong 
Avas  evidently  transient  in  its  nature,  or  the  circum- 
stances in  which  they  were  given  obviously  abnormal 
or  preparatory.  Thus  the  whole  burden  of  express 
direction  which  we  read  in  the  detail  of  Levitical  rites 
and  the  judicial  ordinances  of  ancient  Israel,  tiiough 
with  emphatic  solemnity  it  be  said  of  each,  "This  shall 
be  an  ordinance  for  ever,"  binds  us  no  longer,  unless  by 
fair  exegesis  and  New-Testament  light  we  find  particular 
injunctions  which  belong  to  the  code  of  moral  obligation. 
So  also  with  rare  and  singular  commands  on  extraordi- 
nary occasions,  interspersed  through  all  the  times  of 
preternatural  dealing  with  the  Church,  Old  Testament 
and  New ;  as  when  Abraham  M^as  ordered  to  sacrifice 


40  CHURCH  GOVERNxMENT. 

Isaac,  and  the  Israelites  were  told  to  ask  jewels  of  their 
oppressors,  and  the  first  preachers  to  provide  nothing  for 
their  own  sustenance,  though  sent  to  inhospitable  homes, 
and  the  primitive  elders  to  anoint  the  sick  with  oil  in  the 
name  of  the  Lord.  Whatever  principles  of  obedience 
may  be  hinted  by  such  exceptional  injunctions,  the  special 
form  of  them  is  not  binding  upon  us. 

Precepts  in  Scripture  which  do  not  pertain  to  an 
obsolete  dispensation  nor  peculiarity  of  uncommon  occa- 
sion largely  shape  the  visible  Church.  Organized  as  a 
missionary  society,  her  form  is  the  creation  of  a  com- 
mand from  the  lips  of  her  Saviour :  "  Go,  teach  all  na- 
tions." Built  for  the  celebration  of  ordinances,  institu- 
tional precepts  counted  the  number  and  prescribed  the 
formulas  of  these  :  "  The  like  figure  whereunto  even 
baptism  ;"  "  Do  this  in  remembrance  of  me."  Gathered 
into  visible  assemblies  like  the  folds  of  a  shepherd,  the 
visible  faith,  diligence,  watchfulness  and  care  of  minis- 
ters all  originate  in  commands  of  Scripture.  Tended  by  a 
non-producing  body  of  men  whose  work  and  labor  of  love 
are  spiritual  and  not  carnal,  the  worshiping  assemblies  are 
explicitly  commanded  to  give  this  order  a  liberal  main- 
tenance out  of  their  carnal  things,  thus  making  a  formal 
distinction  between  ministers  and  people.  1  Cor.  ix. 
14 ;  Gal.  vi.  6.  These  visible  folds  may  not  be  faith- 
fully cared  for-  by  the  hireling  shepherd  or  the  flock 
may  wander  away  from  the  pastures  enclosed,  and  many 
another  kind  of  mischief  may  befall  the  one  or  the  other, 
and  the  whole  interest  requires  conservation  by  discipline. 
This  also  is  performed  by  divine  command.  Tit.  iii.  10 ; 
Rev.  ii.  Ministers  are  too  few,  and  they  die;  successors 
are  needed  now  and  always ;  and  these  are  not  born,  as 
the  Levites  were,  but  are  called  afresh  from  every  tribe 


THERE  IS  A   FORM  GIVEN.  41 

and  in  every  generation.  And  this  call,  the  preparation, 
the  probation,  the  investiture, — all  are  matters  and 
methods  of  express  injunctions  in  Scripture.  1  Tim. 
V.  22 ;  2  Tim.  ii.  2,  etc.  In  short,  the  explicit  com- 
mands of  the  Bible  respecting  alike  the  visible  con- 
structure  and  outward  arrangements  would,  if  connected 
in  one  view,  make  up  the  outline  of  a  system  that  is 
complete  in  visible  form. 

2.  Implicit  or  constructive  commands  are  equally 
binding.  In  the  precepts  of  the  Decalogue  negative  in- 
junctions forbidding  sins  are  fairly  construed  as  com- 
manding the  opposite  virtues  and  duties,  and  such  as 
forbid  the  outward  grossness  of  the  act  prohibit  with 
equal  force  of  authority  the  inward  disposition  or  incen- 
tive to  the  act.  Referable  to  the  Church,  visible  and 
invisible,  are  many  such  constructive  injunctions,  and 
what  seems  to  be  an  occasional  and  minute  direction 
becomes  a  broad  commandment.  Thus  the  right  to 
have  our  infant  children  baptized  because  they  are  born 
within  the  pale  of  the  visible  Church  is  fairly  derived 
from  an  unrepealed  behest  to  ancient  Abraham,  as  well 
as  an  express  extension  of  the  family  promise  in  the 
words  of  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  And  many 
an  explicit  command  bears  to  us  a  broad  implication 
by  way  of  necessary  means  to  the  end  it  enjoins.  When 
Timothy  is  commanded  to  "  lay  hands  suddenly  on  no 
man,"  there  is  fairly  devolved  a  caution  upon  all  suc- 
ceeding evangelists  engaged  in  ordination  to  formulate 
instruction,  preparation,  time  and  trial  at  the  threshold 
of  the  Christian  ministry.  When  the  apostle  requires 
expressly  that  men  be  first  proved  and  finmd  blameless 
for  the  office  of  deacon,  there  is  implied,  of  coui*se,  the 
necessity  of  similar  procedure  before  the  older  and  higher 


42  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

office  of  elder  is  assumed.  When  our  Saviour  bids  an 
aggrieved  and  complaining  party  to  "tell  it  to  the 
church,"  the  implication  is  fair  that  he  means  a  bench, 
and  not  a  bishop,  as  the  ultimate  tribunal  of  redress. 

3.  Divine  acts  as  well  as  precepts  have  had  conspicu- 
ously a  formative  force  on  the  Church  in  all  ages.  Cere- 
monial institutes  of  burdensome  ritual  were  abolished 
by  the  act  of  Christ  coming  in  the  flesh  to  fulfil  all 
righteousness.  Offices  in  the  Church,  in  all  varieties 
of  form,  needed  for  continuance  and  for  the  first  time 
and  for  all  time,  were  conferred  by  the  act  of  Christ 
ascending  to  his  Father  and  "  receiving  gifts  for  men." 
To  this  day  an  ascension-gift  from  him  is  the  constitu- 
tional foundation  of  any  proper  office  in  the  Christian 
Church.  Acts  of  the  people  in  making  officers  are  null 
without  special  recognition  of  a  qualifying  gift  bestowed 
by  the  act  and  influence  of  God  himself,  and  the  calendar 
of  New-Testament  offices  reducible  at  his  pleasure  with 
the  ceasing  of  need  for  this  and  that  office  mentioned  in 
Scripture  may  be  restored  more  or  less  according  to  the 
acts  of  Christ  in  the  ceaseless  vigilance  and  care  with 
which  his  administration  is  conducted. 

4.  Divine  approbation  is  another  source  of  warrant 
for  visible  feature  in  the  Church  of  God.  The  church 
of  Ephesus  had  such  commendation  for  not  enduring 
the  wicked  within  her,  detecting  false  ministers  and 
hating  the  deeds  of  the  Nicolaitans ;  and  it  is  fair  to  in- 
fer from  this  that  the  Church  is  authorized  with  di- 
vine right  to  keep  herself  pure  and  to  exercise  a  searching 
and  rigid  discipline  upon  her  own  members,  rebuking  the 
disorderly  and  expelling  the  reprobate.  When  the  apostle 
commends  for  double  reward  "  the  elders  that  rule  well," 
in  distinction  without  preference  from  those  "  who  labor 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  43 

in  word  aud  doctrine  "  (1  Tim.  v.  17),  we  infer  a  divine 
riffht  in  making;  ruling;  elders  a  distinct  order  of  office. 

5.  Scripture  examples.    The  imitable  pattern  of  Christ 
and  the  conduct  of  holy  men  as  they  were  led  and  in- 
structed by  the  Spirit  of  God   must  be  considered  as 
formative  alike  of  compact  and  conduct  in  the  "  doe- 
trine   and    fellowship "    of    apostolical    churches.      The 
apostle  Peter,  himself  "an   elder,"  in  giving  direction 
to  the  "oversight"  by  presbyters  who  succeeded  him, 
bids  them  not  to  be  "  lords  over  God's  heritage,"  but  "  en- 
samples  to  the  flock."     The  apostle  Paul,  who  could  say, 
"  So  ordain  I  in  all  churches,"  would  say  with  variety  of 
emphasis,  "  Be  ye  followers  of  me,  even  as  I  also  am  of 
Christ ;"  "  Be  followers  together  of  me,  aud  mark  them 
which  walk  so  as  ye  have  us  for  an  ensample;"  "  Those 
things,  which  ye  have  both  learned,  and  received,  and 
heard,  and  seen  in  me,  do :  and  the  God  of  peace  shall 
be  with  you."     The    peculiar   abundance   of  such    in- 
junctions, together  with  the  fact  that  large  portions  of 
Scripture,  Old  Testament   and   New,  are   declaratively 
given  to  couformate  the  body  of  Christ,  both  visible  and 
invisible,  constrains  the  inference  that  no  polity  is  good 
and  true  which  does  not  copy  its  features  mainly  from 
the  models  of  transactions  revealed  in  the  word  of  God. 
The  binding  precedent  in  revelation  may  be  discrimi- 
nated easily.     There   is  not  an  action  revealed  in   the 
Bible  whose  moral  quality  is  not  written  beside  it;  so 
that  the  exercised  disciple  may  follow  with  instinctive 
appreciation,  that  rarely  infatuates  him  with  the  letter. 
Sinfulness  and  singular  eccentricity  are  always  obvious 
in  sacred  annals  to  the  spiritual  mind  as  we  study  their 
biography.     We  do  not  invoke  punishment  from  heaven 
upon  our  persecutors  because  Elias  called  down  fire  upon 


44  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

his.  We  may  not  punish  without  process  of  law  the 
most  atrocious  criminals  in  Church  or  State,  because 
Phinehas  killed  without  trial  the  adulterous  pair  that 
were  leading  Israel  to  sin.  We  are  not  to  design  the  ex- 
tinction of  our  own  lives  in  the  patriotism  which  plots  the 
destruction  of  enemies  because  Samson  did  so.  We  are 
not  to  keep  aloof  from  honorable  Avedlock  because  Paul 
remained  unmarried,  nor  seclude  ourselves  from  the 
amenities  of  social  life  because  John  the  Baptist  lived 
in  the  desert  and  wore  a  leathern  girdle,  nor  invade  the 
rights  of  property  with  communistic  Utopia  because  they 
"had  all  things  common"  at  the  spiritual  effusion  of 
Pentecost.  Common  sense  would  be  distempered  in  the 
man  who  would  find  in  the  rarity  of  such  examples  a 
binding  model,  even  though  interpretation  confounds 
him.  If  the  act  in  question  is  agreeable  to  the  word 
of  God  as  a  whole,  is  practicable  now,  suitable  to  present 
circumstances  and  in  harmony  with  present  providence, 
the  example  binds  us;  it  is  the  will  of  God  in  our  duty, 
divine  right  is  our  warrant  and  divine  approbation  is  the 
reward  of  our  followine:. 

Thus,  we  are  bound  to  imitate  the  apostles  in  baptizing 
women  as  well  as  men,  and  whole  households  on  the 
profession  of  parental  faith  as  well  as  that  of  adult 
members  in  particular.  We  ai'e  bound  to  follow  them 
in  meeting  for  worship  on  the  first  ratiier  than  the 
seventh  day  of  the  week,  in  memory  of  "  the  resurrec- 
tion." We  are  bound  to  lay  on  the  hands  of  the  Pres- 
bytery without  a  prelate  in  ordaining  candidates  for 
office  in  the  ministry.  We  are  bound  to  connect  in  a 
common  representation  the  churches  of  a  populous  com- 
munity, in  town  or  country,  to  be  called  Church  in  the 
singular  number,  as  they  called  the  churches  of  Jerusa- 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  45 

lera  and  Antioch  respectively,  and  also  to  summon  gen- 
eral assemblies  for  the  care  of  such  collective  ecclesia,  as 
they  did  a  council  at  Jerusalem,  to  decide  on  a  reference 
from  Antioch  to  settle  disputes,  to  manage  interests  of 
great  moment,  and  constrain  with  pastoral  circular  all 
the  churches  to  accept  the  decrees  of  charity  and  wisdom, 
in  the  submission  of  amity  and  peace. 

6.  The  liffht  of  nature  itself  is  authorized  in  revela- 
tion  to  warrant  many  things  for  the  framework  and 
usages  of  the  visible  Church.  Dim  as  this  light  may 
be,  and  inconclusive  as  its  authority  on  the  conscience 
must  be  when  separated  from  the  sources  already  men- 
tioned, it  has  a  sanction  for  all  the  inferences  derived  by 
right  reason  from  Scripture  premises  of  precept  and  ex- 
ample, and  for  all  the  cougruities  of  manner  and  detail, 
that  practical  piety  and  enlightened  sentiments  of  devo- 
tion would  annex  to  the  solid  structure  we  find  in  the 
Bible.  When  we  know  that  God  is  its  author,  and  the 
glimmering  of  its  ray  might  picture  his  "  eternal  power 
and  Godliead "  to  the  most  benighted  pagan,  we  must 
look  for  divinity  in  its  beaming,  and  dignify  the  most 
minute  proprieties  of  custom  with  a  touch  of  the  venera- 
tion which  begins  at  the  corner-stone  of  the  edifice  we 
build.  It  helps  the  Church  alike  to  discipline  the  gross- 
ness  of  immorality  at  home,  and  the  frivolities  of  fashion 
in  the  sanctuary.  "A  wise  master-builder"  was  aided 
by  this  light  in  rebuking  incest :  "  It  is  reported  com- 
monly that  there  is  fornication  among  you,  and  sucii 
fornication  as  is  not  so  much  as  named  amono;  the  Gen- 
tiles,  that  one  should  have  his  father's  wife."  Again,  to 
the  same  Corinthian  church  he  quotes  the  instincts  of  na- 
ture on  the  subject  of  head-dress  in  their  prayer-meetings : 
"  Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach  you,  that,  if  a  man 


46  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

have  long  hair,  it  is  a  shame  unto  him?  But  if  a  woman 
have  long  hair,  it  is  a  glory  to  her."  In  short,  there  is 
not  one  becoming  function  or  mode  or  measure  devised 
by  spiritual  men  for  edification  at  this  temple,  and  be- 
lieved to  be  consistent  in  letter  and  spirit  with  that  main 
architecture  which  the  Bible  has  drafted,  that  may  not 
"  look  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God "  for  his  fiat 
and  blessing. 

"  Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach"  us  that  the  servant 
is  not  greater  than  his  lord,  that  the  servants  of  the  lowly 
Jesus,  who  came  to  minister  and  give  his  life  a  ransom  for 
base  and  rebel  men,  should  not  be  lords  over  the  heritage 
of  God,  or  be  ministered  to  with  distinguished  titles  and 
worshipful  seats  of  high  position  in  the  house  of  their 
common  Master?  "Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach" 
us  that  prayer  to  God  our  Father  should  be  the  sponta- 
neous expression  of  individual  souls  and  individual  con- 
gregations, represented  by  individual  ministers,  with  the 
help  of  the  Spirit  and  according  to  the  varied  conditions 
of  time  and  place,  instead  of  being  petrified  by  tradition 
or  bound  up  by  cathedral  canonicity  of  one  generation  for 
another  until  it  becomes  proper  only  by  some  new  trans- 
lation? "Doth  not  even  nature  itself  teach"  us  that 
representatives  should  be  chosen  to  act  for  the  people  in 
church  communities  as  well  as  in  other  kind  of  society 
when  it  is  impossible  as  well  as  inexpedient  for  them 
to  act  for  themselves  with  intelligent  decision  ?  and 
that  in  such  representation  the  majority  should  govern 
and  the  minority  acquiesce  in  the  Lord  ?  and  that  when 
a  partial  or  prejudiced  judgment  would  trample  on  the 
rights  of  any  church-member  there  should  be  constitu- 
tional provision  for  appeal  to  anotlier  tribunal  of  larger 
representation,  other  collective  wisdom  and  exempt  from 


THERE  IS  A  FORM  GIVEN.  47 

the  local  influence  which  had  injured  its  cause  where  it 
originated? 

All  these  things  unsophisticated  reason  teaches  by  the 
light  of  nature,  with  or  without  the  parallel  lines  of  or- 
dinance in  Scripture,  inasmuch  as  the  Bible  itself  recog- 
nizes authority  in  such  dictates  for  all  that  is  auxiliary 
and  supplemental  to  that  consistency  of  outline  which 
revelation  authenticates.  And  all  the  sources  of  warrant 
now  indicated  for  the  system  we  teach  are  consentaneous 
and  flow  together,  yet  any  one  of  thein  apart  will  sanc- 
tion a  feature  in  its  own  category.  One  part  may  be 
commanded,  another  construed,  another  exemplified, 
another  implied  in  a  revealed  act  or  approbation  of 
God,  and  still  another  may  be  subjoined  by  the  wisdom 
of  men,  exercising  common  sense,  with  devout  accord 
and  pious  conformity.  We  seek  to  unite  them  all  in 
our  view  of  the  body  we  prefer,  and,  however  scouted 
it  mav  have  been  for  its  claim  to  divine  right  in  the 
past,  however  broadened  it  may  be  in  the  charity  which 
forgets  itself  while  co-operating  with  others  at  present, 
and  however  much  it  may  come  behind  others  in  figure 
and  visible  numbers  now,  we  may  well  be  sure  of  the 
ultimate  rise  and  establishment  of  this  form  as  "an 
eternal  excellency,  the  joy  of  many  generations." 


CHAPTER   II. 

ECCLESIA. 

THIS  word,  which  is  now  transferred  to  English  by 
dictionaries  of  onr  language,  is  of  Greek  original, 
and  is  defined  by  Brande,  "  The  great  assembly  of  the 
Athenian  peoples,  at  which  every  free  citizen  might 
attend  and  vote."  It  is  familiarly  translated  in  our 
tongue  by  the  word  "church."  This  term  also  is  of 
Greek  derivation,  and,  as  some  say,  from  two  words 
compounded,  meaning  "the  house  of  the  Lord."  Others 
derive  it  from  a  Greek  adjective — xi>[)io.x6q,  "  pertaining 
to  the  Lord,"  a  word  twice  used  in  the  New  Testament, 
the  Lord's  Supper  and  the  Lord's  Day.  The  earliest 
missionaries  front  Constantinople  gave  it  to  the  Goths 
on  the  lower  Danube,  qnd  these  gave  it  indirectly  to  the 
Anglo-Saxons.  "  House  of  the  Lord  " — "  church  "  in 
England,  "  kirk  "  in  Scotland — was  until  the  Reforma- 
tion the  name  given  to  the  building  itself  in  which  God 
was  visibly  worshiped.  Then,  by  metonymy — the  thing 
containing  for  the  thing  contained — this  word  began  to 
designate  the  assembly  of  worshipers  within  the  sacred 
walls.  Yet  the  early  translations  of  the  Bible  by  Tyn- 
dale  and  Cranmer  seem  to  have  avoided  this  figurative 
use  of  the  word,  and  used  the  term  "  congregation,"  not 
"  church,"  where  it  now  uniformly  occurs.  This  later 
translation  to  mean  the  assembly  within  so  quickly  and 

48 


ECCLESIA.  49 

generally  prevailed  iu  the  parlance  of  evangelized  people 
that  many  scrupled  to  use  the  word  any  more  as  a  name 
for  the  edifice,  calling  the  latter  "  meeting-house."  But 
now  the  term  "  church  "  is  familiarly  used  in  both  senses. 
Ecclesia,  or  church,  iu  the  seuse  of  assembly,  has  a 
synonym  in  "  synagogue,"  and  was  used  for  the  most 
part  by  "  the  seventy  "  Greek  translators  to  render  a 
Hebrew  word  ( ■"^p)  which  signifies  a  coming  together  by 
call,  and,  passing  by  the  secular  use  of  this  word  in  Acts 
xix.  32,  39,  41,  we  may  find  in  its  application  to  Chris- 
tian assemblies  five  distinct  senses  which  it  is  important 
for  us  to  note  with  careful  scrutiny  and  candid  research. 

1 .  A  particular  church  or  congregation  meeting  together 
in  one  place  for  the  worshij)  of  God  and  the  observance  of 
his  ordinances.  Acts  xiv.  23.  This  church  mav  be  identi- 
cal  with  a  single  family,  or  a  few  individuals  of  differ- 
ent families,  in  a  private  house.  Col.  iv.  15  ;  Rom.  xvi.  5. 
It  may  exist  not  only  in  a  private  conventicle,  with  but 
two  or  three  met  together,  but  also  without  formal  or- 
ganization. When  Paul  and  Barnabas  "  returned  "  iu 
their  mission  to  "  confirm "  the  souls  of  disciples,  they 
"  ordained  elders  in  every  church,"  the  particular  churches 
having  apparently  Avaited  a  Avhile  for  such  organization 
in  order  to  discern  proper  men  for  the  eldership. 

2.  A  number  of  particular  churches  in  the  same  city  or 
vicinity  or  country  united  in  one  ecclesiastical  body.  When 
severally  organized  by  the  appointment  of  elders,  they 
are  collectively  one  in  a  Presbytery.  We  read  of  the 
church  in  the  singular  number  at  Antioch  (Acts  xiii.  1), 
at  Jerusalem  (Acts  viii.  1),  at  Corinth  (1  Cor.  i.  2),  while 
the  sacred  historv  constrains  us  to  believe  there  must  have 
been  more  disciples  in  each  of  these  communities  than 
could    meet  in  one    place  for  worship  and    instruction. 

4 


50  CHURCH  OOVEBNMENT. 

This  collective  sense,  remarkably  suggestive,  is  frequent 
and  familiar. 

3.  It  means  all  the  local  churches  and  all  visible  com- 
munities of  ecclesia  which  are  extant  on  earth.  This 
general  sense,  inferable  as  progress  from  the  expansion 
of  local  to  provincial  distinction,  is  found  in  Acts  xv.  3, 
where  Paul  and  Barnabas — commissioners  from  Antioch 
to  Jerusalem — are  said  to  have  been  "  brought  on  their 
way  by  the  church  "  as  they  traveled  through  Phenice 
and  Samaria  declaring  to  the  brethren  the  conversion  of 
the  Gentiles.  The  hospitable  facilities  of  travel  indi- 
cated here  were  common  over  all  the  Christendom  then 
to  be  seen,  for  the  apostle  speaks  of  it  in  connection  with 
his  contemplated  journey  into  Spain  (Rom.  xv.  24)  and 
his  proposal  to  winter  at  Corinth.  1  Cor.  xvi.  6.  This 
indefiuite  extension  of  visibility,  expressed  in  the  singu- 
lar number — "  the  church  " — should  be  considered  a  dis- 
tinct sense  from  the  definite  compactness  of  one  com- 
munity. In  such  general  sense  we  see  it  used  in  1  Tim. 
iii.  15,  where,  in  allusion  to  the  stone  pillars  on  which 
imperial  rescripts  were  published,  the  "church"  is  called 
"  the  pillar  and  ground  of  the  truth." 

4.  The  church  invisible,  consisting  of  true  believers 
effectually  called — the  lohole  society  of  faithful  ones  who 
are  united  to  Christ  by  the  indwelling  of  his  Spirit  and  a 
living  faith.  Acts  xx.  28.  Though  visibility  must  be  a 
predicate  of  the  Church  universal  on  earth,  it  is  not  es- 
sential in  any  one  form,  nor  at  all  times  in  any  form  what- 
ever, so  far  as  social  organism  is  in  shape.  We  can  have 
a  distinct  idea  of  the  Church  composed  of  a  scattered 
and  persecuted  few  whose  meetings  are  disbanded,  whose 
ordinances  are  suppressed  and  who  even  fail  to  recognize 
one  another,  as  was  the  condition  of  witnesses  in  the  dark 


EGGLESIA.  51 

ages  of  a  visible  apostasy  and  bloody  intolerance.  We 
can  extend  our  conception  to  the  invisible  universe — all 
space,  and  all  time  too — and  include  the  first-born  who 
are  already  written  in  heaven  with  the  latest  of  sons  and 
daughters  yet  to  be  called  and  justified.  Nor  does  it 
embarrass  the  comprehension  at  all  to  dispense  with 
formulas  of  every  kind,  doctrinal  as  well  as  ecclesiastical, 
univ^ersals  as  well  as  particulars  ;  for  the  bond  is  personal 
union  to  Christ,  so  as  to  be  incorporated  as  members  of 
his  mystical  body,  "  the  fulness  of  Him  that  filleth  all  in 
all." 

This  bond  alone  is  viewless,  and  it  is  the  whole  of  that 
ultimate  invisibility  into  which  some  would  simplify  the 
entire  conception  of  the  Church.  All  else  is  visible. 
Visible  persons  compose  it — not  angels — visible  fruits 
prove  its  existence,  visible  ordinances  are  its  note  and 
nourishment,  visible  bodies  at  the  resurrection  rise  to 
the  consummation  of  its  glory.  And  the  more  con- 
spicuous, palpable  and  all-engrossing  it  becomes,  the 
more  it  reaches  to  the  destination  of  its  Founder  and 
realizes  the  ultimate  scheme  of  his  own  word  and 
promise.  The  reality  of  union  to  Christ  by  faith  will 
suffice  to  bring  into  the  Church  members  who  may  have 
no  Church-state  in  the  eyes  of  men,  nor  valid  ordinances, 
nor  conscious  communion  of  saints,  nor  even  recognition 
by  those  who  are  lawfully  commissioned  to  gather  and 
feed  the  flock  of  Jesus  Christ.  On  the  other  hand,  there 
mav  be  the  tenure  of  a  Church-state  and  warranted  frui- 
tioa  of  its  benefits  to  some  extent  without  actual  conver- 
sion of  the  soul.  The  parent  may  have  his  family  bap- 
tized and  truly  saved  in  the  same  visible  relation,  without 
having  himself  regenerated  by  any  of  its  immunities, 
and  to  say  that  he  is  not  really  in  the  Church  at  all 


52  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

because  he  is  not  savingly  united  to  Christ  by  faith  is 
as  much  a  solecism  as  to  say  that  a  man  is  not  a  tenant 
of  God's  goodness  in  the  ordinations  of  nature  and 
providence  because  he  has  no  loyalty  of  heart  to  God 
nor  vital  interest  in  him  as  the  portion  of  his  soul. 

The  distinction  of  the  Church  into  visible  and  in- 
visible is  therefore  not  the  same  as  into  nominal  and 
real,  apparent  and  true,  as  many  allege  nowadays.  The 
visible  is  actually  and  divinely  instituted,  as  well  as  the 
invisible.  The  body  of  man  was  made,  and  made  to  be 
redeemed,  by  the  Head  of  the  Church,  as  well  as  his 
soul.  The  antiquity  of  its  date  (Acts  vii.  38),  the  ety- 
mology of  its  name,  its  New-Testament  record  of  indefi- 
nite continuance,  the  necessity  of  its  platform  as  a  place 
of  transaction  for  the  visible  and  the  invisible  together, 
"  a  tabernacle  of  witness"  for  "the  Church  in  the  Avil- 
derness," — all  admonish  us  against  the  radical  simplifica- 
tion that  would  sink  the  seeming  as  if  it  were  the  same 
as  the  false,  and  find  no  refuge  from  the  repellaut  visi- 
bility at  Rome  but  in  a  mystic  idea  which  would  sub- 
limate the  organism  of  redeemed  sons  and  daughters 
beyond  the  conditions  of  humanity,  and  make  spirits  only 
the  subject  of  ecclesiastical  administration,  though  the 
apostle  would  have  the  "whole  spirit  and  soul  and 
body  preserved  blameless "  by  such  instrumentality 
"  unto  the  coming  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

With  this  moderation  on  the  subject,  we  argue  for  the 
distinct  existence  of  a  spiritual  body  in  the  fulness  of 
Christ  composed  of  regenerated  believers  only,  as  a 
main  sense  of  the  Christian  Church. 

(1)  The  metaphors  employed  in  Scripture  to  describe 
the  Church  mean  this,  beyond  question,  and  metaphor 
goes  deeper  than  definition  always,  though  narrower  on 


ECCLESIA.  53 

the  surface.  She  is  the  body  of  Christ  (Epli.  i.  23  ;  Col. 
i.  18) — not  visibly  alone,  but  inwardly  and  vitally  also,  as 
the  sympathies  of  a  living  body  are  intimate  between  the 
members  with  each  other,  and  all  of  these  with  the  head. 
So  the  apostle  illustrates  (1  Cor.  xii.  27) :  "  Now  ye  are 
the  body  of  Christ  and  members  in  particular."  Of 
course  it  is  not  so  with  merely  formal  professors.  Again, 
she  is  called  the  spouse  of  Christ  (Eph.  v.  23 ;  Rev.  xix. 
7),  and  surely  false  professors  who  would  betray  the 
Saviour  with  a  kiss,  and  who  may  be  found  in  the 
purest  visibility  of  the  Church  on  earth,  cannot  be 
included  in  such  endearing  and  durable  relation ;  for 
in  this  figure  she  is  "arrayed  in  fine  linen  clean  and 
white,  and  the  linen  is  the  righteousness  of  saints." 
Again,  she  is  called  a  fold.  John  x.  The  sheep  within 
it  know  the  voice  of  the  Shepherd  and  follow  him,  and 
he  gives  them  eternal  life,  and  they  shall  never  perish, 
neither  shall  any  pluck  them  out  of  his  hand.  We  must 
not  allow  within  such  a  fold  those  whom  he  says,  even 
in  a  visible  Church-state,  "  Ye  believe  not,  because  ye 
are  not  of  my  sheep."  And,  once  more,  she  is  called  a 
building  of  God.  Eph.  ii.  21 ;  2  Thess.  ii.  4.  Her 
foundation  is  Christ,  her  materials  are  "  lively  stones," 
her  structure  is  so  fitly  framed  together  that  every  joint 
"supplieth  strength,"  and  her  stability  such  that  "  the 
gates  of  hell  cannot  prevail  against  her."  Individuals, 
therefore,  whose  faith  is  dead,  whose  foundation  is  on 
the  sand  and  who  are  not  built  up  for  an  habitation  of 
God  through  the  Spirit  are  uot  integral  parts  of  such  a 
building. 

(2)  The  general  description  of  her  character  purports 
the  Church  invisible  as  a  frequent  sense  of  the  ecclesia. 
She  is  the  object  of  an  eternal  decree  of  grace  (1  Pet.  i. 


54  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

2 ;  Heb.  xii.  23),  and  includes,  therefore,  only  those  who 
are  viewed  with  complacency  by  the  infinite  Mind.  Her 
members  are  known-  by  the  inward  condition  of  the 
heart :  "  He  is  a  Jew,  which  is  one  inwardly  ;  and  circum- 
cision is  that  of  the  heart,  in  the  spirit,  and  not  in  the 
letter ;  whose  praise  is  not  of  men,  but  of  God."  Rom.  ii. 
28,  29.  Even  her  progress  in  the  world  as  a  kingdoii: 
is  emphatically  contrasted  with  the  splendid  visibility  of 
old — the  exodus,  the  march,  the  triumph,  the  establish- 
ment in  Canaan.  '  "  The  kino-dom  of  God  cometh  not 
with  observation.  Neither  shall  they  say,  Lo  here !  or 
lo  there !  for,  behold,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."  Luke  xvii.  20.  In  accordance  with  this  chief 
signification  of  the  term  in  Scripture  is  the  language  of 
the  Creed,  that  is  held  in  superstitious  veneration  by 
those  who  reject  the  distinction  of  invisible  :  "  I  believe 
in  the  holy  catholic  Church  ;"  "  Faith  is  the  evidence  of 
things  not  seen"  With  Bellarmine  and  others,  the  Creed 
means,  therefore,  "  I  see  the  holy  catholic  Church,  and 
therefore  believe  in  her," 

5.  A  tribunal  in  the  Church  for  the  settlement  of  dif- 
ferences among  brethren,  to  which  is  to  be  their  ultimate 
appeal.  Matt,  xviii.  17  :  "And  if  he  shall  neglect  to  hear 
them,  tell  it  unto  the  church  ;  but  if  he  neglect  to  hear  the 
church,  let  him  be  unto  thee  as  a  heathen  man  and  a 
publican."  This  tribunal  could  not  mean  the  people  in 
common  of  a  particular  church,  for  no  such  conventicle 
was  then  existing.  It  could  not  be  considered  prolep- 
tical  direction  for  a  Church  of  the  future,  for  he  says, 
"  My  Church,"  in  the  predictive  sense ;  and  here  it  is 
evidently  some  judicatory  then  familiar  and  practicable: 
"the  Church."  It  cannot  mean  divulging  to  a  commu- 
nity of  Christian  people  in  any  sense  the  matter  which 


ECCLESIA.  55 

has  failed  of  redress  by  private  means ;  comparative 
privacy  is  continued  to  the  last:  "Let  him  be  unto  thee" 
(not  the  public)  "  as  a  heathen  man,"  etc.  No  tribunal 
of  gossip  is  the  last  resort  of  an  aggrieved  believer. 
And  it  has  been  a  principle  of  Church  discipline  from 
the  beginning,  not  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  oifences. 
We  are,  then,  shut  up  to  the  synagogue,  where  there  was 
a  representative  bench  of  elders,  and  where  our  Lord  and 
his  apostles  resorted  for  patterns  of  teaching  and  ruling 
and  adjudication  by  an  eldership.  It  was  the  collegium 
p7'esbyterorum,  as  Schleusner  calls  it,  which  is  here  called 
ecclesia.  And  with  this  great  lexicographer  agree  a  host 
of  renowned  interpreters,  such  as  Calvin,  Beza,  Le  Clerc, 
Campbell  of  Aberdeen  and  Edward  Robinson  of  New 
York.  Zuvaywyri  and  ^Exxkqala  ("  synagogue "  and 
"  church  ")  are  synonyms  convertibly  used  in  the  Greek 
translation  of  the  Old  Testament  and  by  the  apostle 
James  in  the  New.  A  judicial  commission  consisting 
of  some  two  or  three  or  more  of  the  elders  existed  in 
this  Church  of  the  old  economy,  and  these  were  the 
Church  acting  in  a  judicial  capacity  by  representation. 
This  would  seem  to  be  naturally  the  reference  of  our 
Lord  in  this  place.  Indeed,  an  exegetical  necessity  is 
averred  in  view  of  the  next  verse,  and  the  whole  context 
from  the  fifteenth  verse  to  the  end  of  the  chapter.  Dr. 
J.  Addison  Alexander  in  his  Commentary  on  3IaWicw 
says,  in  the  analysis  of  ch.  xviii.,  that  the  subject  of  this 
portion  is  "  the  nature  of  Christian  discipline  or  the 
divine  law  of  censures  and  forgiveness."  From  all  these 
considerations  we  may  infer  at  least  that  a  church  court 
or  judicatory  is  a  distinct  sense  of  the  term  "church" 
in  the  Scriptures. 

These  five  different  senses  of  "  ecclesia  "  will  never  be 


56  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

gathered  into  one  definition  of  the  Church.  The  visible 
Church  may,  indeed,  comprehend  four  of  them  with 
logical  precision,  but  the  invisible  cannot  be  contained 
in  the  same  formula,  either  expressly  or  impliedly. 
And  yet  this  we  have  seen  to  be  a  principal  meaning 
of  the  word  in  Scripture.  How  the  mixed,  limited  and 
countable,  transient  and  liable  to  corruption  and  deform- 
ity, could  be  made  identical  and  commensurate  with 
what  "  no  man  can  number,"  eternal  in  the  past,  present 
and  future  as  the  purpose  of  God  himself,  and  incorrupt- 
ible as  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect  in  heaven,  or 
how  the  twain  could  be  uttered  in  one  breath  and  sen- 
tence of  Catholicism,  is  inconceivable.  Like  the  con- 
cursus  in  theology  of  divine  sovereignty  and  man's 
free  will,  we  give  it  up  in  explanation.  Of  course  we 
hold  both  conditions  to  be  of  divine  ordination  and  ex- 
plicable apart,  but  how  they  fit  and  blend  and  consist  in 
relations  exactly  no  one  formulation  could  tell.  Hence 
the  wisdom  of  our  Westminster  Fathers,  who  were  never 
excelled  in  the  skill  of  definition  nor  exceeded  in  the 
compass  of  religious  thought,  has  given  us  two  defi- 
nitions of  the  Church  (1st,  invisible;  2d,  visible),  both 
catholic,  both  biblical — viz. : 

1.  "The  catholic  or  universal  church,  which  is  in- 
visible, consists  of  the  Avhole  number  of  the  elect,  that 
have  been,  are,  or  shall  be  gathered  into  one,  under  Christ 
the  head  thereof;  and  is  the  spouse,  the  body,  the  fulness 
of  him  that  filleth  all  in  all." 

2.  "  The  visible  church,  which  is  also  catholic  or 
universal  under  the  gospel  (not  confined  to  one  nation 
as  before  under  the  law),  consists  of  all  those  throughout 
the  world,  that  profess  the  true  religion,  together  with 
their  children,  and  is  the  kingdom  of  the  Lord  Jesus 


ECCLESIA.  57 

Christ,  the  house  and  family  of  God,  out  of  which  there 
is  no  ordinary  possibility  of  salvation." — Confession  of 
Faith,  ch.  xxv. 

It  is  important  for  us  to  notice  how  much  alike  and 
how  much  unlike  are  these  two  classical  formulas.  They 
are  similar  in  being  "  catholic  and  universal  "  since  the 
advent  of  Christ,  everywhere  simultaneous,  and  yet  dis- 
tinct, both  of  them  universal,  and  yet  definitively  sep- 
arate— not  two  churches,  and  yet  not  one  and  the  same, 
just  as  body  and  soul  of  a  living  man  are  not  two 
persons,  and  yet  not  one  nature.  Both  existed  under 
the  Old-Testament  dispensation,  but  not  alike  universal 
and  catholic  save  in  the  forecast  of  prophecy,  adding  the 
Gentiles  to  the  visible  Church.  Both  are  gathered  re- 
spectively by  the  call  of  God  in  his  word  and  by  the 
agency  of  his  Spirit,  but  not  alike  in  the  vital  efficiency 
of  the  latter.  Both  are  divisible  in  reduction  to  units, 
yet  neither  of  the  units  can  be  one  and  single,  as  an  in- 
dividual detached.  For  in  the  Church  invisible  a  true 
member  is  plural  essentially  in  being  united  to  all  others 
of  the  mystical  body  as  surely  as  he  is  united  to  the 
Head  by  faith,  and  in  the  visible  Church  the  unit  has  ever 
been  and  ever  will  be  the  family — two,  "  together  with 
their  children."  Here  we  must  quit  analysis  and  rele- 
gate to  mystery  the  depths  of  our  subject :  "  This  is  a 
great  mystery,  but  I  speak  concerning  Christ  and  the 
church."  When  husband  and  wife — being  two,  and  yet 
"  one  flesh  " — can  be  expressed  in  one  logical  proposition 
without  "  and  "  or  "  if"  in  its  terms,  and  compact  in  one 
predicate  phrgse  the  several  qualities  of  each  party,  then 
only  we  may  cease  to  double  our  definition  of  the  Church 
and  surrender  as  but  shallow  and  superfluous  the  second 
definition  which  was  voted  at  Westminster. 


58  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Moreover,  should  the  first  definition  become  catholic 
and  exclusive,  it  would  subvert  the  fabrics  of  all  exist- 
ing Catholicism,  Greek,  Roman  and  Protestant,  and 
supersede  in  great  measure  the  study  of  any  visible 
formation,  making  Church  polity  a  thing  of  fancy  or 
convenience,  not  only  of  inferior  importance,  but  of  no 
importance  at  all  except  for  external  history  and  lines 
of  tradition.  Besides,  we  must  go  back  with  it  to  the 
Old-Testament  time  and  interpret  in  its  light  the  oi*di- 
nances  and  prophecies  pertaining  to  the  Church  of  the 
past  as  well  as  the  present  and  future.  If  the  true  and 
ultimate  idea  of  *'  Church "  be  the  invisible  only,  then 
were  the  types  of  old  but  shadows  of  a  shadow,  adum- 
brating a  great  corporeity  which  has  all  figures  blended 
in  its  substance,  and  yet  is  itself  without  figure  and 
without  even  substance  ever  to  be  seen  with  the  bodily 
eye.  All  that  the  Bible  makes  in  form,  before  a  visible 
organization  of  the  Church  on  earth,  are  promises  and 
incidents  of  worship,  interspersed  along  the  track  of 
primeval  history,  without  unity  enough  to  be  named 
at  all,  and  of  course  to  be  defined,  until  a  visible  organi- 
zation was  made.  It  was  in  the  family  of  Abraham  that 
recipients  of  ecclesiastical  promise — parents,  children  and 
proselytes  together — were  first  gathered  into  the  form  of 
an  organized  church  with  the  bond  of  a  covenant  and  the 
seal  of  a  sacrament.  This  visible  church  in  one  family 
was  a  unit,  and  has  remained  such  in  varieties  of  shape 
to  this  day.  Through  all  subsequent  descent,  expansion, 
vicissitude,  trial,  triumph,  exodus,  backsliding  and  estab- 
lishment it  was  the  same  one  visible  Cl^urch,  though 
numbering  diversities  of  shape  in  succession  as  many 
as  denominations  to  be  counted  now  in  the  true  visible 
Church.     So   the   proto-martyr   Stephen    said   in   sub- 


ECCLESIA.  59 

stance,  and  would  not  have  said  if  it  had  not  been 
the  mind  of  his  Lord  Jesus.  Moses  led  that  "  Church 
in  the  wilderness "  and  gave  it  "  the  lively  oracles " 
which  he  received  from  the  Angel  of  God  as  a  commis- 
sion and  trust  to  this  visible  Church  through  all  gen- 
erations, and  the  Messianic  prediction  of  his  lips — "A 
prophet  shall  the  Lord  your  God  raise  up  unto  you  of 
your  brethren  like  unto  me;  him  shall  ye  hear" — is 
replete  with  visibility.  As  surely  as  Moses  was  a  man 
and  not  a  myth,  and  the  children  of  Israel  were  a  congre- 
gation and  not  an  idea,  and  inspired  genealogies  were 
history  and  not  fable,  and  the  advent  of  Christ  himself 
at  length  was  the  birth  of  a  child  at  Bethlehem  and  not 
a  phantasm, — so  surely  is  the  "  great  mystery  of  godli- 
ness" confided  to  one  visible  Church  liirough  all  ages  of 
time. 

So  converge  the  prophecies  of  a  future  glory  and  ex- 
pansion of  the  Church  on  eai'th  (Isa.  ii.  2) :  "  The  moun- 
tain of  the  Lord's  house  shall  be  established  in  the  top 
of  the  mountains,  and  shall  be  exalted  above  the  hills; 
and  all  nations  shall  flow  unto  it."  No  metaphors  of 
the  visible  and  unity  of  the  visible  could  be  more  strik- 
ing. But  we  find  in  other  places  an  emphatic  identifica- 
tion of  the  same  Old-Testament  Church  in  pointing  to 
her,  impersonated  in  the  singular  number  and  with  all 
sorts  of  personal  pronouns,  appropriating  to  one  and  the 
same  visible  body  the  promises  of  coming  glory  and  en- 
largement :  "  My  Spirit  that  is  upon  thee,  and  my  words 
which  I  have  put  in  thy  mouth,  shall  not  depart  out  of 
thy  mouth,  nor  out  of  the  mouth  of  thy  seed,  nor  out 
of  the  mouth  of  thy  seed's  seed,  saith  the  Lord,  from 
henceforth  and  for  ever.  Arise,  shine ;  for  thy  light  is 
come,  and  the  glory  of  the  Lord  is  risen  upon  thee. 


60  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

For,  behold,  the  darkness  shall  cover  the  earth,  and 
gross  darkness  the  people  :  but  the  Lord  shall  arise  upon 
thee,  and  his  glory  shall  be  seen  upon  thee.  And  the  Gen- 
tiles shall  come  to  thy  light,  and  kings  to  the  brightness 
of  thy  rising.  Lift  up  thine  eyes  round  about,  and  see ; 
all  they  gather  themselves  together,  they  come  to  thee ; 
thy  sons  shall  come  from  far,  and  thy  daughters  shall 
be  nursed  at  thy  side.  Then  thou  shalt  see,  and  flow 
together,  and  thine  heart  shall  fear,  and  be  enlarged; 
because  the  abundance  of  the  sea  shall  be  converted 
unto  thee,  the  forces  of  the  Gentiles  shall  come  unto 
thee."  Isa.  Ix. 

If  such  prophecies  fail  to  indicate  oiie  visible  Church 
of  old  becoming  catholic  and  universal  in  "  the  time  of 
reformation  "  and  by  the  spread  of  the  gospel,  though 
fallible  as  ever  even  with  superior  light,  mingled  as  ever 
with  "  the  abundance  of  the  sea  "  and  "  the  forces  of  the 
Gentiles,"  hardly  half  of  them  converted  truly — an 
aggregate  of  increase  more  spiritual  without  being  more 
holy,  more  civilizing  and  philanthropic  without  being 
more  circumcised  in  heart ;  if  we  must  find  a  new 
Church  in  the  New  Testament,  and  that  only  in  a 
germ  of  regeneration  within  each  individual  which  no 
man  can  see  or  discriminate, — surely,  then,  we  must  for- 
bear to  look  and  only  imagine  as  we  proceed  to  investi- 
gate. The  Old  Testament  and  the  New  are  sundered 
ecclesiastically  if  we  have  no  distinct  definition  of  the 
Church  as  visible  to  study  in  our  scheme  of  revealed 
institution.  And  even  the  New-Testament  history  is 
all  a  parable  if  there  be  nothing  literal  in  the  mention 
of  "  Church."  The  term  is  indeed  of  mystical  import 
in  passages  where  the  context  compels  us  to  spiritualize 
and  contemplate  the  invisible,  but  so  are  the  sacraments, 


ECCLESIA.  61 

baptism  and  the  Ijord's  Supper,  occasionally  used  as 
metaphors  of  spiritual  aud  uuseen  realities.  And  yet 
we  consider  the  Friends  to  be  in  grave  error,  who  reject 
the  literal  ordinances  called  by  these  names,  because  of 
the  exceptional  figurative  sense  which  they  prefer. 

On  the  whole,  we  cling  to  the  second  as  well  as  the 
first  definition  of  "  Church"  in  our  Confession  of  Faith, 
aud  say  in  our  abbreviation  for  this  department,  It  is  a 
community  separated  from  the  rest  of  the  world  by  a  pro- 
fession of  faith  in  Christ,  and  obsei^vance  of  his  ordi- 
nances. 

The  Visible  Ecclesia. 

There  can  be  no  Church  government  without  organiza- 
tion, of  course,  and,  no  functions  of  government  being 
possible  for  man,  as  he  is  a  member  of  the  Church  in- 
visible, except  only  those  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  the 
work  of  inward  sanctificatiou  by  his  agency,  we  must 
consider  only  the  outward  policy  of  administration 
ordained  for  the  visible  Church  under  the  New-Testa- 
ment dispensation  in  pursuing  discussions  here.  Three 
problems  at  the  threshold  require  solution  as  far  as  it  can 
be  made  in  this  world — the  sectarian  divisions  which  are 
painfully  visible,  the  tests  of  unity  by  which  we  discern 
the  true  branches  of  our  one  olive  tree,  and  the  uhe- 
nomenon  of  mixture,  good  and  bad  together,  in  the  best 
as  well  as  the  Avoi'^t  of  these  visible  branches. 

I.  Denominational  distraction  has  always  pertained  to 
the  visible  Ciiurch,  and  has  always  been  regarded  as  evil. 
"  Great  searchings  of  heart"  among  the  tribal  diversities 
in  particular  descent  from  the  Father  of  the  Faithful — 
for  divisions  of  Reuben,  envy  of  Ejjhraim,  vexation  of 
Judah  aud  war  of  Benjamin — pictured  what  has  followed 
wherever  the  Abrahamic  covenant  has  broadened  from 


62  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  family  in  his  house  to  that  ecclesiastical  covenant 
fulfilled,  iu  which  he  was  to  be  "  the  father  of  many 
nations." 

National  names  divide  the  visible  Church,  however 
closely  ecclesiastic  alliance  may  tend  to  unite  the  dif- 
ferent bodies  in  sympathy.     Tradition,  creed,  prejudice 
and  fashion  also  divide  her,  and,  in  so  far  as  the  true 
churches  compete  with  one  another  without  charity  and 
co-operation,  the  disunion  is  to  be  deplored  as  unseemly 
and  inexcusable.     But,  on  the  other  hand,  divisions  and 
subdivisions  of  the  Christian  name  are  not  unmingled 
evil  and  reproach.     They  correspond  with  the  forecast 
of  prophecy  and  the  findings  of  prophecy  fulfilled  in  the 
gathering  glory  of  the  visible   Church ;    and  prophecy 
fulfilled  is  a  main  bulwark  of  Christianity.     Count  the 
triumphs  of  modern  missions  and  survey  the  colors  of 
light  now  diversified  on  the  whole  surface  of  this  globe 
and  contrasted  with  the  dark  which  draped  it  when  the 
century  began.     Give  to  every  sect  its  own  distinctive 
banner  aud  let  it  wave,  and  to  every  language  its  own 
peculiar  accent  aud  let  it  speak  the  M^ord  of  God  ;  give 
to  every  form  of  government  its  throne  for  kings  to  be 
the  "  nursing  fathers  and  queens  the  nursing  mothers," 
or   its  constitution   of  republican  freedom    to    suit   the 
glorious  liberty  of  the  sons  of  God  :  all  these,  and  many 
more   diversities  which   mar   the  uniformity  that  man 
would  see,  enhance  the  beauty  of  realization  upon  every 
hand,  although  they  multiply  divisions  of  the  one  visible 
Church. 

Again,  diversities  of  organization  suit  the  very  nature 
of  cultivated  mind,  which  must  have  a  freedom  of  choice 
amouo;  visible  thino;s  and  occasion  to  construct  unity  for 
each  man's  own  judgment  and  taste  from  the  contrariety 


ECCLESIA.  63 

of  materials  in  view.  There  is  no  unity  found  without 
numbers  around  it,  and  unity  in  variety  seems  to  be  the 
perfection  of  design  through  all  the  works  of  creation  and 
providence.  And  why  should  "  Zion,  the  perfection  of 
beauty,"  be  anything  else  than  many  in  one  for  our  eyes 
to  behold?  Instead  of  regretting  to  see  the  plural  of 
other  denominations  crowding  the  settlements  of  our 
frontier,  and  especially  its  villages  and  infant  cities, 
"  rejoice  and  work  righteousness  "  there,  by  strengthen- 
ing your  own  stake  and  lengthening  your  own  cords  in 
co-operation  with  all  others,  that  can  be  encompassed  for 
that  great  end  of  the  visible  Church  the  salvation  of 
souls.  Herein  is  her  unity  manifest,  and  herein  the 
apparent  evil  of  division  is  turned  to  far  greater  good. 
Another  advantage  of  divisions  in  the  visible  Church 
is  to  gain  the  utmost  of  truth  by  witness-bearing  :  ^'  Ye 
are  my  witnesses,  saith  the  Lord ;"  "  Whereof  we  are 
witnesses,"  etc.  Each  division  is  produced  by  an 
emphasis — though  exaggerated,  probably — of  some  par- 
ticular truth  in  doctrine,  polity,  ordinance,  or  even  mode 
and  manner  of  worship.  For  such  a  truth  it  lifts  a 
banner  and  separates  in  work  and  warfare.  The  most 
complete  establishment  of  the  whole  truth  in  any  cause 
must  be  derived  from  the  concurrent  testimony  of  all 
diversities,  and  so  important  is  it  for  exact  ascertainment 
of  the  truth  that  judicial  wisdom  will  seek  diversity  and 
seclude  one  witness  from  hearing  another  depone,  to  find 
by  examination  and  cross-examination  of  all  partisan 
extremes  a  rightly  balanced  conclusion  of  the  truth. 
Fair  analogy  such  conclusion  is  to  the  discovered  unity 
of  the  visible  Church  for  all  its  evangelical  divisions,  and 
the  right  procedure  to  attain  it  is  co-operation  rather 
than  consolidation.    Organic  union  is  hardly  ever  effected 


64  CHURCH  GOVERXMEXT. 

"without  a  compromise  of  truth,  more  or  less,  and  this  can 
hardly  be  done  without  reducing  that  fulness  of  attesta- 
tion to  -which  the  visible  Church  is  called. 

These  and  other  considerations  which  will  occur  to 
reflecting  minds  are  quite  enough  to  content  us  with 
visible  divisions  in  the  one  visible  Church ;  but  -when 
witnesses  fail  to  apjjear  with  others  in  the  prosecution 
of  a  great  cause,  and  refuse  to  co-operate  in  demonstrat- 
ing the  value  of  truth  or  holiness  bv  their  works  in  the 
world,  a  question  arises  about  their  standing  in  ecclesias- 
tical recognition.  AVitnesses  are  not  permitted  to  swear 
in  court  if  they  have  sworn  falsely  before,  and  are  not 
credible  in  making  testimony  when  they  are  permitted 
■without  inteorritv  of  character  as  well  as  truthfulness 
to  sustain  what  thev  affirm.  And  so  amonsr  the  bodies 
of  the  visible  Church  divided  from  others  in  preaching 
the  gospel. 

II.  It  is  of  much  importance  ecclesiastically  to  decide 
what  is  and  what  is  not  a  true  branch  of  the  visible 
Church.  "  Notes  of  the  true  Church  "  has  been  a  crucial 
topic  ever  since  the  great  Reformation,  and  it  is  remark- 
able that  these  notes  have  been  abridged  in  proportion  to 
the  increase  of  ecclesiastical  bodies.  The  accession  of  un- 
historical  churches,  Baptist,  Brownist,  TTesleyan  and 
Quaker,  has  constrained  abatement  in  the  rigor  of  tests 
by  the  spiritual  development  of  life  in  these  Christian 
organizations.  In  the  Scots  Confession  of  1560,  John 
Knox,  while  discarding  the  Roman  Catholic  tests,  ex- 
pressly inlaid  as  follows  the  position  of  Calvin  and  his 
successors  at  the  Genevan  school,  adopted  as  his  own : 
"  The  notes,  signs  and  assured  tokens  whereby  the  im- 
maculate spouse  of  Christ  Jesus  is  known  from  the  hor- 
rible harlot  the  Kirk  malignant,  we  affirm,  are  neither 


ECCLESIA.  65 

Antiquity,  Title  usurped,  liueal  Descent,  Place  appointed, 
nor  Multitude  of  men  approving.  .  .  .  The  notes,  there- 
fore, of  the  true  Kirk  of  God,  we  believe,  confess  and 
avow  to  be :  First,  the  true  preaching  of  the  word  of 
God,  in  the  which  God  has  revealed  himself  to  us. 
Secondli/,  the  right  administration  of  the  sacraments, 
which  must  be  annexed  to  the  word  and  promise  of  God 
to  seal  and  confirm  the  same  in  our  hearts.  Lastly,  ec- 
clesiastical discipline,  uprightly  ministered,  as  God's 
word  prescribed,  whereby  vice  is  repressed  and  virtue 
nourished.  Wheresoever,  then,  these  notes  are  seen 
and  of  any  time  continue,  be  the  number  never  so  few 
above  two  or  three,  there,  without  all  doubt,  is  the  true 
Kirk  of  Christ,  who,  according  to  his  promise,  is  in  the 
midst  of  them — not  that  universal  of  which  we  have 
before  spoken,  but  particular,  such  as  was  in  Corinthus, 
Galatia,  Ephesus  and  other  places  in  which  the  ministry 
-svas  planted  by  Paul,  and  which  were  of  himself  named 
the  kirks  of  God.  And  such  like  we,  the  inhabitants 
of  the  realm  of  Scotland,  professoi-s  of  Christ  Jesus, 
confess  us  to  have  in  our  cities,  towns  and  places  re- 
formed." 

All  branches  of  the  Reformation,  Lutheran  and  Re- 
formed, agree  with  the  Scots  Confession  to  reject  the 
Church  of  Rome  as  no  true  Church  of  Christ.  Though 
Calvin  made  a  distinction  between  the  whole  and  con- 
jectural parts  of  this  great  apostasy,  as  we  see  in  his 
Institutes,  conceding  that  it  was  possible  to  deserve  the 
name  of  '* church"  in  certain  sodalities  of  Romanism, 
like  that  of  the  Jansenists  a  century  after  his  dav,  vet, 
as  Rome  would  never  tolerate  a  branch  in  her  Catholi- 
cism exceptionally  evangelical  in  doctrine  and  spirit,  but 
requires  all  or  nothing  in  her  ecclesia,  he  rejects  with 

5 


6Q  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

totality,  absolute  as  she  is  arrogant,  her  claim  to  be  a 
true  Church  at  all :  "  Because  those  marks  which  we 
ought  chiefly  to  regard  in  this  controversy  are  obliterated, 
I  affirm  that  the  form  of  the  legitimate  Church  is  not  to 
be  found  either  in  anv  one  of  their  congregations  or  in 
the  body  at  large."  (See  the  last  sentence  of  his  ad- 
mirable chapter  on  the  subject.  Institutes,  Book  4,  chap. 
2.)  It  should  be  observed  just  here  that  Calvin  and 
Knox  were  the  first  in  Christendom  since  the  days  of 
Constantine  to  particularize  the  local  assembly  as  a 
church  having  distinct  and  substantive  right  to  the 
name  of  "church."  Though  in  every  land  the  mere 
edifice  might  be  called  by  metonymy  a  church  wdieu 
dedicated  to  Christian  worship,  yet  the  ecclesia  itself  was 
always  a  generalization  signifying,  even  in  Lutheran  and 
Anglican  literature,  only  the  national  idea,  and  perhaps 
the  provincial  at  times,  and  in  Greek  and  Roman  eccle- 
siasticism  the  universe,  indefinitely  catholic.  A  par- 
ticadar  ecclesia  was  first  denominated  "church-kirk"  in 
Scotland.  The  union  of  Church  and  State  on  the  one 
hand  and  Puritan  mightiness  on  the  other,  the  former 
tendino;  to  national  breadth  and  the  other  to  local  inde- 
pendence,  actually  countervailed  each  other  enough  to 
secure  the  sacred  a}>pellation  apart,  for  every  congrega- 
tion of  worshipers  in  Great  Britain. 

The  three  marks  of  a  true  Church  laid  down  by  Knox 
have  been  virtually  reduced  to  one,  by  the  prevailing 
sentiment  of  the  present  age  among  evangelical  churches. 
The  Baptist  denomination,  however,  and  that  of  the 
Friends  called  "  Quakers,"  occupy  anomalous  positions. 
They  are  not  fairly  comprehended  in  our  definition  of 
the  visible  Church — "  all  those  throughout  the  world 
that  profess  the  true  religion,  together  with  their  chii- 


ECCLESIA.  67 

dren."  It  is  in  baptism  that  we  make  profession — 
baptizari  est  projiteri,  said  Ui'sinus  ;  and  so  say  all  his- 
torical churches  that  accept  the  old  ecclesiastical  covenant 
in  the  family  of  Abraham.  This  covenant  has  never 
been  repealed  nor  superseded,  but  was  proclaimed  anew 
on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  illustrated  in  household  baptism 
by  the  apostles,  and  is  manifestly  now  being  fulfilled  in 
the  gathering  of  the  Gentiles  to  inheritance  with  the 
JcAvs,  in  family  institute  and  a  covenant  seal  on  its 
entirety,  according  to  the  volume  of  inspired  prophecy. 
It  is  not  "together  with  their  children"  that  Baptists 
are  baptized.  Family  fliith  is  only  adult  and  individual, 
without  sponsorial  margin.  The  family  covenant,  always 
conditional  in  its  promise,  they  do  not  distinguish  at  all 
from  the  covenant  of  grace,  which  in  its  nature  is  uncon- 
ditional to  us.  When  Abraham  had  faith  for  his  chil- 
dren and  had  the  covenant  seal  administered  to  them, 
"  it  was  accounted  to  him  for  righteousness."  Not  that 
he  was  justified  merely  on  account  of  his  own  personal 
faith,  but  that  he  was  legally  reckoned  righteous  by  the 
grace  of  God  in  the  good  obedience  of  entire  consecration, 
having  his  whole  household  share  alike  in  the  symbol 
and  seal  of  family  religion. 

Distant  from  us  ecclesiastically  are  the  Quakers  also 
in  the  application  of  the  second  test,  "a  right  adminis- 
tration of  the  sacraments,"  "  the  visible  word,"  to  be 
seen  and  taken  and  handled.  The  mysticism  of  this 
denomination,  disparaging,  if  not  discarding  altogether, 
external  ordinances  of  religion,  including  to  a  certain 
extent  even  the  objective  Scriptures,  may  so  exhibit  in 
life  the  things  signified  in  the  sacraments  and  taught  in 
the  Scriptures  as  to  stand  the  test  of  the  first  great  note, 
and  the  third  also,  notwithstanding  the  literal  disobedi- 


68  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

euce  of  omitting  the  right  administration  of  sacraments. 
Quietism  was  once  the  refuge  of  piety,  when  it  fled  the 
noise  of  sounding  brass  and  tinkling  cymbals  in  the 
show  of  that  huge  exterior  which  drove  a  true  Church 
to  the  wilderness ;  and  why  should  this  Church,  reformed 
and  restored,  object  to  the  shelter  we  can  aiford,  for  that 
silent  protest  against  forms  which  goes  to  the  opposite 
extreme  of  inward  light  ?  On  the  whole,  in  view  of  the 
fact  that  our  Christian  faith  is  not  merely  or  mainly 
sacramentarian,  and  thankful  to  God  for  this,  like  the 
apostle  Paul  (1  Cor.  i.  14),  and  notwithstanding  our 
Baptist  brethren  exaggerate  the  baptism  of  a  parent 
and  yet  refuse  to  let  him  profess  for  his  child,  and 
although  the  Quaker  Friends  cremate  the  visible  ordi- 
nances with  fire  within  themselves,  and  will  have  no 
ecclesiasticisra  but  what  is  spiritual  and  angelic, — yet 
both  these  bodies — at  least,  in  the  orthodox  division  of 
each — holding  the  pure  word  of  God  to  be  preached  and 
read  with  the  right  of  private  judgment,  and  therefore 
holding  all  ecclesiastical  problems  to  be  soluble  aright  in 
revelation  and  reason,  are  fairly  entitled  to  be  enrolled  in 
the  sisterhood  of  true  visible  churches. 

Especially  so  in  considering  the  third  chief  note  of  a 
true  Church — the  right  exercise  of  discipline,  surrounding 
their  folds  with  muniment  of  divine  appointment  to  re- 
press the  follies  and  rebuke  offences,  Avhich  mar  the  con- 
sistency of  a  good  profession.  In  this  respect  these 
modern  churches  compare  most  favorably  with  two  of 
the  historical  churches — the  Lutheran  and  the  Anglican. 
Neither  the  Auo'sburg;  Confession  nor  the  "  Thirtv-nine 
Articles"  contain  any  provision  for  the  censoi'ship  of 
morals.  Herein  is  a  memorable  contrast  between  the 
two  great  branches  of  the  Reformation.     Zuinglius  and 


ECCLESIA.  69 

Calvin  began  with  the  postulate,  that  a  reformation  of 
manners  should  go  hand  in  hand  with  reformation  of 
doctrine,  but  Luther  and  Melanohthon  thought  it  enough 
to  secure  a  life  becoming  the  gospel  to  fill  believers  with 
gratitude  and  love,  trusting  to  the  expulsive  power  of  a 
new  affection  the  regulation  of  life  and  prevention  of 
scandal.  The  only  office  of  the  law,  according  to  these 
great  teachers,  must  be  that  of  a  schoolmaster  to  bring 
men  to  Christ,  and  hence  Luther's  catechism  puts  the 
commandments  before  the  doctrines,  whilst  the  Reformed 
in  their  catechisms  put  the  doctrines  of  grace  first  and  the 
moral  law  second,  holding  the  latter  to  be  also  a  rule  of 
life  in  the  hand  of  a  Mediator. 

The  Church  of  England  has  nothing  in  her  standards 
except  one  of  her  authorized  homilies  to  indicate  this 
great  ordinance  of  discipline,  which  our  Lord  enjoins, 
and  with  which  the  head  of  the  last  surviving  apostle 
was  so  filled  in  the  vision  of  Patmos,  and,  although  she 
is  classed  with  the  Reformed  by  historians,  she  ought  to 
be  marked  as  an  exception,  being  Lutheran  more  than 
Calvinistic.  The  tendency  of  both  these  bodies  having 
been  toward  alliance  with  the  State  in  some  definite 
form,  and  therefore  to  be  imbued  more  or  less  with 
Erastiauism,  which  defers  to  the  civil  authority  the 
censorship  of  morals  within  as  well  as  without  the 
Church,  we  must  let  the  deformity  of  this  effect  alone 
till  every  such  unhallowed  affinity  be  dissolved.  And 
yet,  however  inapplicable  the  third  note  of  a  true  Church 
may  be  to  these  renowned  churches,  and  however  doubt- 
ful the  second  may  be,  the  right  administration  of  sacra- 
ments, it  is  clear  as  the  sun  that  the  first  and  all-engross- 
ing mark  is  theirs,  the  Bible,  unchained,  and  "not 
bound,"  the  promises  of  God,  the  gospel  of  his  kingdom, 


70  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  "  lively  oracles "  committed  to  them  both,  to  be 
jj reached  and  read,  with  the  right  of  all  people  to  judge 
for  themselves.  However  much  we  regret  the  vexation 
with  which  neological  criticism  in  Lutheran  Germany- 
has  been  sifting  the  sayings  of  God  by  his  Spirit,  and 
however  confused  the  many  translations  and  challenges 
of  the  text  itself  in  England,  these  bodies  both  do  sing 
in  their  anthems,  "  The  words  of  the  Lord  are  pure 
words ;  as  silver  tried  in  a  furnace  of  earth,  purified 
seven  times."  This  must  ever  be  the  souo-  of  a  true 
Church,  wherever  the  people  in  common  are  allowed  to 
read  the  word  for  themselves. 

Thus  we  see  how  comprehensive  and  sufficient  is  the 
first  note  of  a  true  visible  Church,  and  how  the  second 
and  third  may  be  reduced  to  this  one  ;  how  the  sacra- 
ments are  the  word  made  visible  in  signs  and  only  less 
edifying  when  these  aliments  of  life  are  not  literally 
touched  and  handled ;  how  Anabaptism  itself,  however 
alien  from  the  original  and  perpetuated  covenant  of 
promise  in  the  family,  and  therefore  hardly  ecclesiastic 
at  all,  has,  in  possessing  a  pure  gospel,  the  covenant  of 
grace  "  ordered  in  all  things  and  sure,"  and  how  churches 
that  are  wanting  in  the  scriptural  ordinance  of  discipline 
are  destined  to  overtake  it  in  the  progress  of  purifica- 
tion by  the  word,  when  union  with  the  State  is  dissolved 
and  they  come  to  bind  and  loose  on  earth  by  the  faithful 
and  formal  application  of  divine  words  to  offences. 

Thus  we  see,  also,  that  this  cardinal  test  becomes  a 
bond  of  unity  combining  many  and  great  diversities  of 
form  and  faith  in  one  visible  Church — the  more  intensely 
one  as  these  diversities  produce  a  rival  and  animated 
competition  for  one  and  the  same  great  object,  the  con- 
version of  the  world  to  Christ.     This  object  and  this 


ECCLESIA.  71 

bond  must  ever  compress  variations  to  visible  unity  and 
one  that  lives.  This  pyramid  of-  Church  diversities, 
each  one  of  which  has  in  itself  this  word  of  life  and 
"  lively  stones,"  must  be  living  at  the  top,  for  the  Head 
is  Christ,  and  every  different  organism  which  holds  to 
his  evangel  must  be  a  member  of  his  ecclesiastical  body, 
deriving  life  and  animation  from  himself.  Without  this 
head  and  without  this  evangel  there  can  be  no  true  branch 
of  the  one  visible  Church,  for  the  head  is  the  source  of 
life,  and  the  gospel  is  the  circulating  life-blood  in  any 
true  ecclesiastical  formation.  Hence  the  Socinians  are 
not  fellow-members  in  such  a  body,  because  they  deny 
that  our  exalted  Saviour  and  Head  is  "  very  God,"  and 
they  are  therefore  without  an  adequate  headship  to  com- 
municate life,  influence,  power  and  unction  to  such  a 
diversified  body,  which  must  overspread  the  world 
through  all  coming  generations  of  men.  A  decapitated 
body  is  a  lifeless  trunk. 

The  Komau  Catholic  Church  also,  by  refusing  to  let 
the  people  hear  and  read  the  word  of  God  and  interpret 
for  themselves  its  meaning,  must  be  excluded  from  this 
true  and  one  visible  Church  on  earth,  because  the  one 
chief  test  to  which  all  others  may  be  reduced  condemns 
the  despotism  that  "  takes  away  the  key  of  knowledge  " 
and  will  not  allow,  among  either  Jews  or  Christians, 
any  traditions  but  Roman  to  build  up  the  unity  wliich 
God  approves.  It  was,  therefore,  a  wise  deliverance  for 
the  General  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church  to  say 
in  1835  "that  it  is  the  deliberate  and  decided  judgment 
of  this  Assembly  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  has 
essentially  apostatized  from  the  religion  of  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ,  and  therefore  cannot  be  recognized 
as  a  Christian  Church."    (See  Baird's  Collections,  p.  560.) 


72  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

If  the  papal  Church  would  give  the  Bible  to  the  people 
as  Protestant  churches  do,  the  hierarchy  and  superstition 
which  we  disapprove  should  not  hinder  us  from  recon- 
sidering this  exclusion.  Life  in  her  feet  might  slowly 
restore  itself  to  the  heart,  and  even  to  the  head.  Such  is 
the  problem  of  divisions  in  the  visible  Church.  They 
are  unity  in  variety.  Adhesion  jointly  to  God's  eternal 
word,  as  the  only  rule  of  faith  and  life  for  all  members 
to  use,  makes  unity  enough  in  the  militant  Church. 
Diversities  of  name  and  banner  and  drill  and  organism 
only  heighten  the  life  of  one  great  army.  Organisms  of 
both  the  being  and  the  well-being  in  bodies  are  instinct 
with  life  and  energy,  in  proportion  to  their  interaction 
with  diverse  kinds.  The  unity  of  mere  uniformity  is 
inorganical  and  usually  dead  as  a  stone.  Mutual  charity 
is  the  great  irenicon  we  need  for  diversities  of  form  to 
win  the  world  to  Christ  and  his  kingdom.  Co-operation, 
again  we  say,  is  better  than  consolidation. 

III.  We  are  now  to  cease  counting  the  external 
divisions  of  the  one  visible  Church,  and  balancing  the 
good  of  this  apparent  evil,  as  we  proceed  to  consider  the 
third  embarrassment  of  ecclesiastical  faith,  in  finding  no 
perfection  of  light  or  holiness  in  any  Church  under 
heaven.  The  visible  Church,  alike  in  general  and  par- 
ticular build,  has  a  motley  interior.  Essential  conditions 
of  the  visible  in  this  world  are  mixture  and  mistake. 
Men  must  decide  according  to  the  credible,  not  the 
certain  :  God  only  knows  the  heart.  Yet  even  God  in- 
carnate allowed  one  who  had  a  devil  to  enter  the  original 
band  of  disciples,  and  to  fall  from  the  forming  ranks  of 
Christianity  with  open  and  horrid  apostasy.  It  is  his 
will,  then,  that  the  visible  Church  be  a  mixed  society  at 
present,  and  that  her   sentinels,  however  vigilant  and 


ECCLESIA.  73 

faithful,  may  be  deceived  by  the  false  aud  the  designing 
— his  will,  recorded  even  less  in  this  inscrutable  per- 
mission than  in  the  necessary  constitution  of  a  militant 
Church. 

We  must,  therefore,  be  assured  that  good  results  from 
this  mixture,  however  much  the  enemies  of  Christ  are 
scandalized  and  his  followers  aggrieved  by  the  facts  in 
every  age.  It  is  the  obligation  of  piety  and  hope  to  dis- 
criminate this  good  in  order  to  vindicate  this  economy, 
aud,  while  deploring  the  inability  of  human  efforts  to 
present  the  Church  on  earth  without  spot  or  wrinkle,  or 
any  such  thing,  to  see  that  He  who  will  at  length  achieve 
this  glory  does  even  now  illustrate  his  overruling  care  in 
the  very  spots  she  wears  and  deformity  she  bemoans. 

This  mingled  composition  of  the  visible  Church  ex- 
hibits the  analogy,  which  runs  through  all  things  that 
God  allows  beneath  the  sun.  The  world  is  a  mixture. 
Good  and  evil  are  found  together  in  every  country  and 
clime  and  age  and  generation,  every  condition  of  life, 
every  pursuit  of  man  and  attainment  which  he  proposes 
for  betterment  to  himself  and  others.  All  is  chequered, 
and  God  approves  the  right  and  abhors  the  wrong.  Yet 
the  world  is  his,  and  the  fulness  thereof.  He  owns  it  as 
his,  preserves  it  as  his,  and  neither  the  pride  of  philoso- 
phy nor  the  presumption  of  religion  has  ever  stolen  from 
himself  the  secret  of  evil  in  its  origin,  or  the  reason  why 
he  permits  it  on  this  planet  of  his  own  creation.  And 
look  at  the  noblest  work  of  God  on  earth — a  regenerated 
man.  His  soul  is  profoundly  mixed.  To  him  grace  is 
given  to  mix  light  with  darkness,  life  with  death,  liberty 
with  bondage.  There  is  a  law  in  his  members  warring 
with  the  law  of  his  mind,  a  spark  of  inextinguishable 
holiness  pervading  a  gulf  of  corruption;  yet  he  is  God's 


74  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

M'orkmanship,  God's  building,  pre-eminently,  owned  and 
cherished,  sustained  and  blessed,  with  the  peculiar  care 
of  a  heavenly  Father.  To  say,  then,  that  a  true  Church 
must  be  no  mingled  society,  having  children  in  it  incapa- 
ble of  faith,  and  adults  in  it  who  are  deceivino;  and  de- 
eeived,  is  to  say  that  the  Church  must  be  purer  than  the 
very  souls  of  the  faithful,  and  without  analogy  in  the 
works  of  both  nature  and  grace. 

This  latitude  of  the  visible  Church  is  to  the  world 
a  boon  of  incalculable  benefit.  It  is  a  restraint  upon 
sin  :  men  are  obviously  kept  from  misdemeanor  by  a 
formal  profession.  The  pride  of  consistency,  the  force 
of  habit  and  the  fondness  of  good-fellowship  alone  will 
induce  the  decencies  of  a  harmless,  and  even  commend- 
able, life  in  the  promotion  of  temporal  welfare.  How- 
ever hateful  and  wicked  hypocrisy  must  be,  and  injurious 
to  religion  the  deadness  of  a  false  professor,  yet  the  sins 
which  formality  fetters  and  prevents  would  be  vastly 
more  baleful  to  the  world  than  all  the  harm  that  hollow- 
hearted  insincerity  could  ever  occasion.  Restraining 
grace  in  mercy  to  mankind  goes  hand  in  hand  with 
mortifying  grace ;  and,  though  the  latter  alone  reaches 
the  fountain  of  iniquity,  the  former  banks  in  its  flood 
and  compels  corruption  itself  to  own  the  majesty  and 
power  of  truth. 

Let  the  chimera  of  unmingled  regeueracy  in  the 
Church  on  earth  be  furnished  with  some  infallible 
standard  of  experience,  in  searching  the  hearts  of  pro- 
fessors and  turning  out  all  that  are  not  Israelites  indeed 
who  by  the  force  of  early  associations,  the  love  of  appro- 
bation, the  fears  of  conscience,  the  delusion  of  false  hope, 
or  even  the  sinister  motive  of  present  advantage  in  the 
world,  are  in  the  Church,  but  not  of  it,  in  the  inward 


ECCLESIA.  75 

man ;  and  at  the  breaking  up  of  concealment  would  be 
the  sundering  of  restraint,  and  floodgates  of  impiety 
would  be  opened  to  deluge  the  world,  and  then  would 
come  judgments  of  Heaven  to  destroy  the  nation.  It  is 
not  so  much  the  want  of  genuine  piety  as  open  trans- 
gression which  insults  his  law  with  overt  acts,  that  pro- 
vokes the  judgments  of  God  on  governments  of  men. 
It  is  not  till  hypocrisy  itself  is  dead  that  the  cup  of  a 
nation's  iniquity  is  full.  That  economy  of  the  Church, 
therefore,  which  comprehends  all  that  come  to  make  an 
open  confession  of  Christ  as  the  Author  and  Finisher  of 
their  faith,  and  do  not  discredit  such  profession  with 
traits  of  character  obviously  inconsistent  with  its  avowal 
in  the  judgment  of  charity,  must  have  upon  the  world, 
whether  truly  converted  or  not,  an  influence  to  keep  it 
safe  from  miseries  which  openly  unrighteous  men  pro- 
voke. If  they  are  no  more  than  formal  professors,  their 
contact  with  men  of  the  world  is  all  the  more  intimate 
and  genial  and  eifective  in  its  influence,  while,  on  the 
other  side,  a  credible  profession  wins  the  influence  on 
themselves  for  good,  of  truly  spiritual  men,  thus  mak- 
ing a  circuit  of  salutary  influence,  through  this  inscru- 
table mixture  of  the  true  and  the  seeming,  to  repel 
iniquity  and  enhance  the  happiness  of  Christian  civil- 
ization. 

But,  more  than  this,  the  mere  external  profession 
which  is  credible  at  all  must  greatly  benefit  the  Church 
herself,  adding  to  her  daily  such  as  are  saved,  by  the  in- 
fluence of  parents  on  their  children,  and  outwardly  con- 
sistent professors  on  the  outward  world,  leading  men  to 
the  means  of  grace  and  adding  to  the  visible  resources 
which  God  has  ordained  for  the  propagation  and  trans- 
mission of  his  ''glorious  gospel."     Doubtless,  millions 


76  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

untold  of  saints  on  high  and  multitudes  of  saintly 
members  in  the  Church  invisible,  yet  living  here,  have 
been  led  to  salvation  by  means  of  a  merely  formal  ad- 
herence of  others  to  Christ  and  his  ordinances.  And 
could  we  stand  at  the  door  of  the  Church  to  keep  such 
professors  out  by  some  spiritual  acumen  for  discerning 
regenerated  souls  with  certainty,  making  an  invisible 
quality  the  required  passport  to  a  visible  Church,  a  vast 
proportion  of  the  resources — intellect,  learning,  wealth 
and  power — which  God  has  given  by  his  word  and 
providence  to  the  visible  Church  must  be  shut  off  and 
lost.  It  is  not  in  human  nature  to  endow  and  promote 
any  cause  with  which  one  cannot  be  identified  even  in 
name.  Suppose  a  certainly  regenerated  membership 
the  standard  of  admission,  which  the  dream  of  a  Church 
on  earth  without  a  hypocrite  in  her  number  must  pro- 
pose, were  applied  to  the  great  men  of  her  annals  in  the 
past ;  how  many  of  them  might  be  rejected ! — Tertullian 
for  his  Montanism,  Origen  for  his  Restorationism,  Euse- 
bius  Pamphilius  for  his  Arianism,  Jerome  for  his  violent 
temper,  Erasmus  for  his  indecision,  Grotius  for  his  ra- 
tionalism. And  so  on  through  subsequent  generations 
of  piercing  Puritanism  to  this  day  :  scores  of  eminent 
churchmen  who  have  enriched  the  Christian  Church 
with  treasures  of  learning  might  have  battled  with  fear- 
ful ability  against  her  if  by  the  iusight  of  fallible  men 
the  certainly  converted  only  could  be  accepted  members 
in  the  visible  fold. 

Money,  as  well  as  mind,  has  been  secured  to  the 
Church  by  this  mixture  of  the  true  and  the  seeming. 
Divine  wisdom  has  ordained  that  silver  and  gold  shall 
be  used  in  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  and  that  even  enemies 
in  heart  to  the  cross  of  Christ  shall  be  made  to  help  it 


ECCLESIA.  77 

with  their  gains.  And  men  will  not  help  with  their 
substance  a  cause  with  which  they  cannot  have  a  nominal 
connection,  however  well  they  may  behave,  without  being 
subjected  to  some  inquisition  which  pretends  to  see  the 
invisible  within  us.  Such  perfection  of  i\\Q  visible 
Church  might  remove  much  of  her  dross,  but  certainly 
would  lose  much  more  of  the  gold  from  her  treasures — 
perishable  and  worthless  of  itself,  but  divinely  appointed 
for  instrumentalities  of  mighty  importance  in  the  progress 
of  Christianity  on  earth. 

But  more  than  this  by  far  is  the  protection  which  this 
external  economy  secures  from  robbery  and  persecution. 
Nominal  professors,  confessedly  a  disgrace  in  general, 
are  often  a  shield  of  safety  for  genuine  professors.  Un- 
substantial husks  cover  the  precious  seed  and  screen  it 
from  a  blasting  hostility.  The  world  hates  the  Church 
with  as  fierce  a  malignity  as  ever,  and  we  are  not  with- 
out ominous  monition  at  present  that  new  agnostic  ad- 
versaries of  atheistic  venom  and  socialistic  virulence 
wait  only  for  a  change  of  circumstances  to  blot  out 
Christian  civilization  itself  and  dye  the  scaffold  afresh 
Avith  the  blood  of  saints.  The  chief  preventing  security 
for  the  Church  is  the  number  of  her  professing  friends. 
Their  adherence  in  form  conceals  her  weakness,  and  the 
partisan  though  heartless  array  compels  forbearance. 
Nominal  professors  are  not  much  hated  by  her  ene- 
mies, and  would  be  spared  if  they  were  not  to  be  struck 
at  first  because  they  are  near.  Those  very  men  who 
now  revile  the  Church  because  she  is  mingled  with 
hypocrites,  and  make  it  their  capital  objection  to  Ciiris- 
tiauity  that  so  many  in  the  ranks  are  false,  would,  if 
the  ranks  were  winnowed  and  the  faithful  only  mar- 
shaled at  the  cross,  behold  her  fewness  with  avenging 


78  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

scorn  and  consider  it  again  the  signal  for  making  havoc 
of  the  Church.* 

But  there  should   be  an  end  of  controversy  on  the 
subject,  when  we  o])en  the  Bible  and  look  through  both 
the  Testaments.     Here  we  find  a  fourfold  and  consecu- 
tive authentication  of  that  ecclesiastical  covenant  which 
made  Abraham  "  the  father  of  many  nations  " — type  and 
prophecy  and  history  and  parable.     The  ancient  Church, 
a  type,  and    yet  .substantially  one  with    the    new,  was 
embodied  in  a  host  of  backsliding  people  murmuring, 
discontented  and  seditious,  with  but  very  few  "  of  an- 
other spirit"  like  Caleb  and  Joshua,  in  all  the  march 
through  a  wilderness  to  Canaan.     The  later  prophecies 
of  Isaiah  with  teeming  diversities  of  metaphor  describe 
the  expansion  of  the  New-Testament  Church  as  that  of 
the  Old,  with  greater  variations  and  vaster  accessions  to 
the  same  visibility :  "Lengthen  thy  cords,  and  strengthen 
thy  stakes;"    "Thy    seed    shall   inherit   the    Gentiles." 
Chap.  liv.     And  tben,  as  "  the  kingdom  of  heaven  "  is 
set  forth  in  parables  by  the  lips  of  our  Lord  himself,  it 
is  in  the  parabolic  phrase  of  mixture  for  analogy.     It  is 
likened  to  seed  sown  iu  stony  ground  and  among  thorns 
as  well  as  in  good  ground  ;  to  a  field  sown  with  good 
seed,  and  mixed  with  tares  by  a  subsequent  sowing  of 
tlie  enemy,  yet  the  tares  to  be  left  with  the  wheat  till 
the  ultimate  harvest;  to  a  net  cast  into  the  sea  and  gath- 
ering fisli  of  every  kind,  which  are  to  be  separated,  the 
good  from  tlie  bad,  only  at  the  end  of  the  world,  when 
the  angels  come  "  to  sever  the  wicked  from  among  the 
just;"  to  a  marriage  entertainment  where  one  was  ad- 
mitted in  a  regular  way  without  a  wedding-garment; 
and,  in  short,  to  everything  in  nature  which  can  repre- 

*  Mason's  Essays  on  the  Church. 


ECCLESIA.  79 

sent  an  assemblage  of  mortals  entitled  to  the  same  par- 
ticipation of  privilege  and  benefit  provided  for  time  in 
God's  family  covenant,  and  destined  to  an  ultimate  search 
and  separation  when  the  secrets  of  all  hearts  shall  be 
made  manifest. 

On  the  whole,  this  economy  of  the  visible  Church  is 
"  God's  husbandry  "  and  needs  not  apology  or  explana- 
tion beyond  the  verification  by  his  word,  and  it  is  only 
to  indicate  the  solution  of  difficulty  found  by  superficial 
acquaintance  with  his  whole  revelation,  and  by  mystical 
dreamers  who  would  make  over  again  and  better  what  he 
has  made  good  enough  for  all  mankind,  that  we  have 
made  any  attempt  to  vindicate  the  unsearchable  way  in 
which  he  brings  good  out  of  evil.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  only  those  who  acquiesce  in  this  divine  economy 
are  qualified  to  guard  with  proper  vigilance  and  fidelity 
the  door  of  entrance  into  the  visible  Church.  As  the 
true  believer  will  aim  at  perfection  the  more  he  finds  it 
unattainable  in  the  present  life,  so  the  churchman  who 
inherits  from  the  father  of  them  that  believe  will  seek 
to  preserve  the  heritage  from  abuse  and  reproach  by 
keeping  off  as  much  as  in  him  lies  the  profane  and  the 
io-norant.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  the  enthusiast  who 
deems  it  possible  to  make  up  a  body  of  undoubted 
saints  in  his  visible  assembly  that  is  always  quick  to 
concede  a  word  for  the  shibboleth  or  a  good  feeling  for 
the  test,  and  by  any  and  all  means  fill  his  tabernacle 
without  scruple  about  the  credibility  or  temper  of  his 
keys  in  opening  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


CHAPTER   III. 

THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE. 

WE  have  considered  ecclesia  in  the  diifereut  senses  of 
its  application  according  to  the  Scripture.  We 
have  reckoned  the  aspect  of  unity  in  the  divisions  of  the 
visible  Church  as  manifested  iu  co-operation  rather  than 
organic  union,  animated  more  than  distracted  by  diver- 
sities of  name  and  banner,  the  great  object  being  one 
and  the  same — a  conquest  of  the  world  to  Christ — and 
the  bond  of  unity  being  the  test  of  legitimacy  and  one 
to  which  all  other  notes  of  a  true  Church  may  be  reduced, 
the  gospel  of  the  grace  of  God  contained  iu  his  holy 
word,  and  that  a  mingled  condition  of  the  true  and  the 
seeming  in  every  branch  of  the  visible  Church  member- 
ship waits,  according  to  the  Bible,  for  divine  solution  at 
the  last,  and  divine  overruling  meanwhile.  And  let  us 
now  contemplate  the  organized  existence  of  the  Church 
and  institutionary  marks  in  that  particular  framework 
which  reason  and  revelation  both  approve. 

The  main  ecclesiastical  difference  between  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New  is  a  duality  of  service  iu  the 
former  and  unity  in  the  latter  dispensation.  Worship 
and  instruction  were  divided  of  old  between  the  temple 
and  the  synagogue ;  in  the  Christian  Church  they  are 
united.     Any  public  service  now  which  does  not  com- 

80 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  81 

blue  preaching  or  teaching  with  prayer  and  singing  at 
one  session  of  the  people  is  incomplete,  and  belongs 
rather  to  the  old  Jewish  ritual.  The  question,  then, 
arises,  How  are  the  two  separated  elements  of  ancient 
ordinance  made  one  under  the  gospel  in  its  administra- 
tion henceforth  ?  Were  the  temple  and  the  synagogue 
both  superseded  by  a  new  institution  at  the  coming  of 
Christ?  Or  has  one  of  them  continued  and  the  other 
become  obsolete,  as  a  type  must  be  when  the  antitype 
has  come  according  to  promise? 

We  answer  affirmatively  to  the  last  of  these  questions, 
and  aver  that  the  ecclesia  called  synag-oo-ue  does  continue 
substantially  the  same  ecclesiastical  institute  it  was  in  the 
days  of  David,  and  that  the  tabernacle  or  temple  service 
in  its  main  symbolical  purpose,  with  sacrifice  and  cere- 
mony and  priesthood,  was  finished  in  the  advent  of 
Christ ;  and  its  vain  persistency  to  exist  in  form  a 
century  longer  was  utterly  destroyed  by  the  contempt- 
uous Roman  emperor  Hadrian.  That  annihilation  of 
the  Jewish  state,  like  many  a  lapsed  inheritance  in  every 
age,  started  a  scramble  for  the  spoils,  and  tempted  the 
ambition  of  ecclesiastics  in  the  second  century  to  claim 
the  vanished  priesthood  and  gradations  of  rank  in  three 
orders  as  their  own  right  by  survival,  making  another 
species  of  ecclesia,  divergent  from  both  the  two  of  Old- 
Testament  ordination.  And  we  know  whither  this  new 
departure  proceeded  when,  a  century  later,  Cyprian  him- 
self declared  that  the  Church  of  Christ  is  "  built  upon 
the  bishops."  Let  us,  then,  return  to  the  synagogue 
and.  see,  in  its  origin,  organism,  exercise,  changes  and 
continuance,  the  true  ecclesiastical  institute,  method- 
izing through  all  the  ages  that  ecclesiastical  covenant 
which  began  with  the  family  of  Abraham,  and  bears 
6 


82  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the   blessing   to   all   nations   in   the   ark   of  this   con- 
structure.* 

A  name  is  nothing  without  a  history.  The  term 
"  synagogue,"  at  "  the  fulness  of  time  "  and  since,  would 
seem  to  have  lost  the  generic  sense  in  which  it  was  origi- 
nally used  in  descending  to  become  a  designation  for  the 
local  and  particular  assembly,  and  even  the  house  itself 
of  worship,  among  the  Jews.  The  word  auvayioyrj  is 
used  in  the  Septuagint  as  a  translation  of  some  twenty 
Hebrew  words  in  which  the  notion  of  gathering  is  im- 
plied. Scholars  have  counted  one  hundred  and  thirty 
instances  in  which  it  is  used  by  the  LXX.  to  render  the 
Hebrew  word  rys]},  the  idea  of  which  is  appointed  meet- 
ing, and  twenty-five  times  in  which  it  renders  ^"^p,  mean- 
ing a  called  meeting  or  assembly.  In  the  same  sense  of 
gathering  together  it  is  used  by  Thucydides  and  Plato, 
Ignatius  and  Clement  of  Alexandria.  We  n\ust,  there- 
fore, correlate  the  synagogue  with  all  the  varieties  of  ex- 
pression which  denote  religious  meetings  of  old — the 
proseuchse,  the  oratories,  the  schools  of  the  prophets, 
the  resort  to  a  prophet  at  the  times  of  new  moon  and 
the  Sabbath  and  the  still  more  ancient  form  of  implica- 
tion "  before  the  Lord  :"  "  Moses  of  old  time  hath  them 
that  preach  him,  being  read  in  the  synagogues  every 
Sabbath  day."  Acts  xv.  21. 

This  antiquity  must  have  been  coeval  at  least  with  the 
settlement  of  Israel  in  the  Land  of  Promise,  and  proba- 
bly remoter  than  the  institution  of  tabernacle  and  temple 
for  the  ceremonial  worship  enjoined  upon  the  people,  and 
presumptively  ancient  as  the  birth  of  Enos,  grandson  of 
Adam,  when,  we  are  told,  "  men  began  to  call  upon  the 
name  of  the  Lord,"  or,  as  in  the  margin,  "  call  them- 
*  Vitringa,  De  Synagoga  Vetere,  passim. 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  83 

selves  by  the  uaine  of  the  Lord,"  prayer  and  profession 
implied,  and,  of  coarse,  a  concourse  of  people  assumed.* 
However  this  may  be,  we  cannot  agree  with  Dean  Pri- 
deaux  that  the  words  "  of  old  "  in  the  quotation  from 
James  at  the  Council  of  Jerusalem  could  not  mean  in- 
definite antiquity,  because  Moses  could  not  be  "  read  "  in 
the  synagogues  before  they  had  books,  and  they  had  no 
books  before  the  Captivity  and  exile  at  Babylon.  Doubt- 
less, the  dean  must  have  known  that  oral  reading  from 
the  memory  of  teachers  and  actors  long  preceded  a  manu- 
script on  the  desk,  and  the  manuscript  long  preceded  a 
book  to  be  read ;  that  thousands  in  Greece  and  Rome 
heard  Homer  and  Virgil  recited  from  the  memory  of 
strolling  amateurs  as  if  read  from  a  book.  So  it  must 
have  been  at  these  places  of  sacred  instruction  when 
copies  of  the  law  were  not  to  be  had  even  by  rulers  of 
the  old  theocracy,  and  long  before  the  canon  of  Old-Tes- 
tament Scripture  was  completed.  And  when  the  learned 
and  pertinacious  Prideaux  adds,  "  It  being  the  same 
absurdity  to  suppose  a  Jewish  synagogue  without  a  copy 
of  the  law  as  it  would  Math  us  to  suppose  a  parish  church 
without  a  Bible,"  he  must  have  forgotten  that  hundreds 
of  "parish  churches,"  for  hundreds  of  years  before 
Queen  Elizabeth,  through  insular  and  continental  Eu- 
rope, had  not  a  Bible  to  read  in  the  sanctuary.  Besides, 
it  is  evident  confusion  of  mind  in  that  eminent  scholar 
to  use  the  term  "  synagogue  "  in  its  latest,  narrow,  par- 
ticular and  local  sense  in  measuring  its  antiquity,  instead 
of  that  earlier  and  generic  sense  in  which  he  admits  it 
had  been  used  convertibly  with  the  "proseuchse"  of  old 
— places  of  meetings  for  prayer  which  both  Philo  and 
Josephus  identify  with  the  synagogue.  And  even  if 
*  Vitringa,  De  Synagoga  Vetere,  271  el  seq. 


84  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  word  in  its  general  sense  of  "  gathering  "  for  sacred 
teaching  and  devotion  before  the  return  from  exile 
should  not  occur  in  the  Jewish  annals,  there  is  no  more 
force  in  this  omission  against  a  greater  antiquity  of  this 
institution  than  there  is  against  a  Sabbath  in  Israel  be- 
cause it  is  not  mentioned  in  a  long  stretch  of  five  hun- 
dred years  in  Old-Testament  history. 

This  indefinite  antiquity  of  the  institution  may  well 
presume  that  it  opiginated  in  some  order  and  intimation 
of  God  himself  to  patriarch  or  prophet,  especially  as  we 
know  that  through  all  the  ages  the  latter  had  precedence 
of  the  elder  as  often  as  he  came  along  with  credentials 
of  a  prophet  to  preside  or  officiate  in  the  meeting. 
This  presumption  is  greatly  strengthened  by  the  nature 
of  such  an  institute  in  its  functions,  its  officers  appointed 
and  oracles  committed  in  trust  for  the  interpretation  and 
transmission  of  divine  behests.  It  was  the  school  of 
moral  instruction  for  theocratic  Israel,  and  not  only 
ethicalj  but  legal — a  law-school  in  its  tuition  for  all 
the  tribes — and  its  commentaries  were  given  to  every 
corner  of  the  realm.  Prophets,  priests,  Levites  and 
elders  were  interchano;eablv  the  teachers,  and  all  of  these 
were  distinctly  the  appointment  of  God.  Hence,  both 
Josephus  and  Philo  believed  that  the  synagogue  origi- 
nated from  divine  intimation  to  Moses.  "And  from 
that  time  to  this,"  said  Philo,  "  the  Jews  are  wont  to 
inculcate  the  principles  of  their  religion  on  the  seventh 
days,  setting  apart  that  time  to  the  study  and  contempla- 
tion of  the  things  of  nature;  for  the  oratories  which  are 
in  every  city — what  are  they  but  schools  of  wisdom,  of 
fortitude,  sobriety,  justice  and  piety,  and  of  every  vir- 
tue ?"  And  for  the  accommodation  of  Levitical  preachers 
manses  with  glebe,  or  "suburbs,"  attached  were  to  be 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  85 

assigned  to  them  according  to  divine  direction  ;  and  this 
resnlted  in  the  giving  of  forty-eight  cities  by  lot,  in 
which  all  the  tribes  participated,  to  the  sous  of  Levi, 
that  all  might  have  a  fair  convenience  in  attending  the 
synagogue,  as  we  now  call  the  places  of  meeting.  And 
can  we  conceive  all  this  designation  of  persons  whom 
God  appointed  to  such  service  apart  from  the  temple, 
and  see  his  authority  in  everything  of  local  accommoda- 
tion and  work  and  details  of  exercise,  and  yet  believe 
that  the  gatheriug  there  was  unauthorized  by  himself 
and  a  mere  contrivance  of  human  wisdom  ? 

That  his  people  might  have  no  confusion  of  mind 
about  the  duality  of  the  Levitical  service  at  the  synagogue 
and  at  the  temple  by  turns,  mark  how  divine  inspiration 
expresses  the  distinction  at  a  breath  on  the  lips  of  Moses 
in  his  farewell  blessing  of  Israel  (Deut.  xxxiii.  10) : 
"They  shall  teach  Jacob  thy  judgments,  and  Israel  thy 
law  :  they  shall  put  incense  before  thee,  and  burnt  sacri- 
fice upon  thine  altar."  Here  we  see  the  synagogue  is  first 
in  the  prophetic  benediction,  and  as  we  descend  the  stream 
of  prophecy  to  the  very  last  of  the  canon  we  find  in 
Malachi  (ii.  5-7)  that  the  commission  to  Levi  is  itself 
denominated  "covenant"  without  indicating  any  longer 
service  at  the  temple,  as  if  the  duality  of  exercise  in  ad- 
ministerino;  the  ecclesiastical  covenant  with  Abraham 
were  now  approaching  its  ultimate  unity  in  preaching 
and  teaching  the  kingdom  of  heaven  for  all  people : 
"  My  covenant  was  with  him  of  life  and  peace ;  and  I 
gave  them  to  him  for  the  fear  wherewith  he  feared  me, 
and  was  afraid  before  my  name.  The  law  of  truth  was 
in  his  mouth,  and  iniquity  was  not  found  in  his  lips  :  he 
walked  with  me  in  peace  and  equity,  and  did  turn  many 
away  from  iniquity.     For  the  priest's  lips  should  keep 


86  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

knowledge,  and  they  should  seek  the  law  at  his  mouth  : 
for  he  is  the  messenger  of  the  Lord  of  hosts."  How 
much  do  these  words  of  sublime  expostulation  with  Levi 
resemble  and  foreshadow  the  last  great  commission  of 
our  risen  Lord  and  the  pastoral  charges  with  which  it 
had  been  preceded  !  And  shall  we  say,  then,  that  all 
this  belonged  to  an  institute  of  old  not  appointed  of 
God,  nor  inside  and  antecedent  and  part  of  that  Church 
against  which  "the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail"? 

But,  more  than  the  nature  and  exercise  and  officers 
given  to  the  Old-Testament  ecclesia,  we  find  that  other 
ordinances,  confessedly  divine  at  the  origin,  were  dis- 
pensed in  the  synagogue  rather  than  in  the  tabernacle  or 
the  temple.  The  sacraments  of  old — circumcision  and  the 
passover — when  ministered  at  all  at  religious  meetings 
outside  of  the  family  circle,  were  observed  at  this  insti- 
tution. There  was  no  solemnity  for  children  at  the  tem- 
ple-service except  a  formal  presentation  of  the  first-born 
son.  And  if  the  one  hundred  and  twenty-seventh  psalm 
was  sung  at  the  temple — "  Lo,  children  are  an  heritage 
of  the  Lord,"  etc. — this  had  to  be  explained  and  applied 
at  the  synagogue,  where  the  seals  of  the  covenant  were 
kept  and  affixed.  Add  to  this  important  trust  the 
great  ordinance  of  discipline — a  divine  appointment 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end  of  revelation  for  the 
preservation,  honor  and  sanctification  of  the  Church. 
The  elders'  bench  was  the  court  of  justice  and  censor- 
ship of  morals,  and  to  this  day  Christian  people  are 
hardly  allowed  to  seek  any  other  tribunal  until  this 
one  is  tried.  Now,  again,  we  may  ask,  is  it  conceivable 
that  God  would  choose  for  the  depository  of  his  own 
best  treasure  on  earth — his  word,  his  sacraments,  liis 
ministers  and  seals  and  benches  of  justice — an  institution 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  87 

which  he  did  not  originate  with  anv  iutimation  to  anv  of 
his  servants? 

But  if  the  pertinacious  objectors  will  have  it  that  the 
Christian  church  was  to  be  modelled  after  the  temple, 
and  therefore  we  must  regard  the  synagogue  as  merely 
man's  invention,  unless  we  find  a  precise  record  in  the 
Bible  of  its  divine  ordination,  we  reply  in  this  place  to 
such  assertion  and  demand,  that  God  certainly  approves  an 
appointment  as  his  own  which  must  result  from  a  neces- 
sity created  by  himself.     It  is  obviously  sound  theology 
and  logic  to  say  that  a  necessary  inference  must  be  forcible 
as  the  premises  from  which   it  is  drawn;  likewise  that 
the  errand  of  divine  revelation  was  not  to  supersede  the 
faculty  of  reason,  wherever  it  is  competent  to  discover 
truth  and  fact  involved  in  the  premises  divinely  given. 
Now,  when  we  consider  the  circumstances  of  Israel  and 
the  whole  economy  of  the  situation  at  their  settlement 
in  Palestine,  how  by  word  and  providence  both  it  was 
made  impossible  for  the  families  to  worship  at  the  taber- 
nacle or  temple,  how  males  only,  and  that  but  three  times 
in  the  year,  could  go  over  hills  and  valleys  by  difficult 
and  often  impassable  roads,  we  must  see  that  they  were 
not  provided  for  in  the  facilities  of  religion  more  than 
were  the  heathen  around  them,  if  they  were  not  author- 
ized of  God  to  attend  conventicles  for  worship  and  in- 
struction which  were  nearer  at  hand. 

And  the  necessity  was  vastly  enhanced  by  considering 
the  obligations  devolved  upon  all  the  tribes  to  be  well 
instructed  in  the  knowledge  and  observances  of  relision 
— upon  every  individual  apart  and  every  family  apart 
and  every  tribe  apart :  "  Therefore,  shall  ye  lay  up  these 
my  words  in  your  heart  and  in  your  soul,  and  bind  them 
for  a  sign  upon  your  hand,  that  they  may  be  as  frontlets 


88  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

between  your  eyes.  Aud  ye  shall  teach  them  to  your 
children,  speaking  of  them  when  thou  sittest  iu  thine 
house,  and  when  thou  walkest  by  the  way,  when  thou 
liest  down  and  when  thou  risest  up;  and  thou  shalt 
write  them  upon  the  doorposts  of  thine  house  and  upon 
thy  gates."  Deut.  xi.  18.  And  when  we  turn  to  the 
"  Psalm  for  Asaph,  to  give  instruction  "  (Ps.  Ixxviii.  5), 
sung  at  the  temple  for  the  synagogue  and  perpetuating 
indefinitely  the  tradition  mentioned  therein,  how  conclu- 
sively does  its  inspiration  prove  the  institute  itself  to 
have  been  of  God  in  the  original ! — "  He  established  a 
testimony  in  Jacob,  and  appointed  a  law  in  Israel,  which 
he  commanded  our  fathers,  that  they  should  make  them 
known  to  their  children ;  that  the  generation  to  come 
might  know  them,  even  the  children  which  should  be 
born  ;  who  should  arise  and  declare  them  to  their  chil- 
dren ;  that  they  might  set  their  hope  iu  God,  and  not 
forget  the  works  of  God,  but  keep  his  commandments." 
There  it  was  that  such  fidelity  of  parents  to  their  chil- 
dren was  enjoined — as  it  should  be  still — in  presence  of 
the  children. 

Now,  if  all  this  necessity,  occasioned  by  the  covenant 
God  made  with  Abraham,  and  the  geography  God  made 
for  Israel,  and  the  innumerable  injunctions  to  teach  and 
be  taught  which  he  devolved  upon  all  the  people,  may 
not  conclude  with  certainty  an  instrumental  ecclesia  of 
divine  warrant  to  make  it  all  practicable  and  convenient 
for  obedience,  then  we  have  here  the  strangest  enigma  to 
be  found  in  all  the  Testaments.  But  there  is  no  diffi- 
culty with  common  sense.  Assuredly,  such  a  divine 
necessity  is  the  mother  of  such  a  divine  invention  :  "  I 
wisdom  dwell  with  prudence,  and  find  out  knowledge  of 
witty  inventions."     It  must  be  conceded  at  the  very  least 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  89 

that  the  slightest  intimations  anywhere  in  Holy  Scripture 
suffice  to  confirm  this  conclusion — a  conclusion  which 
Lightfoot  expresses  in  these  words  :  "  What  could  they 
do  without  synagogues,  but  lose  the  law,  sabbath,  re- 
ligion, and  the  knowledge  of  God  and  themselves,  and 
all?"  Some  of  the  scriptural  intimations  are  these 
(Lev.  xxiii.  3) :  "  Six  days  shall  work  be  done,  but  the 
seventh  day  is  the  sabbath  of  rest,  an  holy  convocation." 
Bishop  Stillingfleet  in  his  Irenicum  says  that  the  reason 
for  erecting  synagogues  was  "grounded  on  this  com- 
mand." What  else  can  be  meant  by  "  holy  convoca- 
tion "  as  regular  rest  and  refreshing  on  the  Sabbath  ? 
Historical  incidents  gleaned  from  both  Testaments  are 
even  more  incisive  as  unequivocal  indications  that  regu- 
lar opportunities  and  means  of  grace  were  furnished  to 
God's  people  by  his  authority  at  this  ancient  ecclesia,  so 
distinct  from  the  temple.  When  the  Shunammite,  in 
anguish  of  heart  for  the  death  of  her  son,  hastened  to 
"  run  to  the  man  of  God,"  her  husband,  without  know- 
ing yet  the  cause  of  such  urgency,  asked,  "  Wherefore 
wilt  thou  go  to  him  to-day?  it  is  neither  new  moon  nor 
Sabbath."  Surely,  Elisha  was  not  far  off  and  had  some 
well-known  place  of  regular  ministration  and  occasional 
comfort  in  religion,  according  to  God's  appointment, 
apart  from  the  central  sanctuary  at  Jerusalem,  or  he 
would  not  have  had  the  divine  signet  to  his  ministry 
in  the  miracle  of  restoring  that  child  to  life.  2  Kings 
iv.  10.  Again,  we  have  synagogues  expressly  called 
"synagogues  of  God  "  (Ps.  Ixxiv.  8):  "They  have  burnt 
up  all  the  synagogues  of  God  in  the  land."  No  matter 
how  much  learned  critics  may  have  tortured  both  the 
original  and  the  translation  here,  or  what  Asaph  it  was 
— whether  in  David's  or  Hezekiah's  or  Neheraiah's  time 


90  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

— he  is  named  as  the  author  of  this  inspired  psahn 
before  or  after  the  Babylonish  exile  or  the  substitution 
of  "  assemblies  "  for  "  synagogues ;"  in  the  translation 
it  is  all  the  same  to  us  in  being  that  plural  of  religious 
meetings,  and  of  course  regular  places  of  meeting, 
throughout  all  the  land  which  God  himself  had  author- 
ized and  the  cruel  invaders  of  Israel  had  burnt  and 
destroyed. 

New-Testament  history  also  is  rich  with  instructive 
incidents  to  the  same  effect.  The  attachment  of  our 
Lord  to  the  synagogue  is  remarkable.  There  he  wor- 
shipped in  his  youth  and  in  his  manhood.  The  record 
of  his  utterances  there,  at  Nazareth,  at  Capernaum  and 
all  the  synagogues  of  Galilee  is  replete  with  internal 
evidence  that  he  regarded  that  institution  as  the  Old- 
Testament  Church  in  form.  There  he  began  the  New- 
Testament  preaching  (Luke  iv.  20)  and  explained  the 
secret  of  its  great  commission  to  all  generations  :  "  The 
Spirit  of  the  Lord  is  upon  me,  because  he  hath  anointed 
me  to  preach  the  gospel  to  the  poor,"  etc.  There  his 
mightiest  works  of  healing  were  performed,  and  in  all 
his  words  and  works  in  the  flesh  he  never  hinted  by 
word  or  action  that  the  ecclesia  found  and  founded  there 
was  destined  to  pass  away.  It  is  true  that  there,  as 
well  as  everywhere  else,  he  rebuked  hypocrisy  and  pride 
in  "the  time  of  reformation"  which  came  with  his  min- 
istry, and  it  is  true  that  his  errand  was  not  institutionary 
in  its  nature;  yet  in  coming  "not  to  destroy  but  to 
fulfil "  it  is  very  certain  that  he  did  fulfil  the  destina- 
tion of  the  old  ecclesiastical  institute — not  to  pass  away 
with  the  temple,  but  to  stand  with  a  new  anointing,  and 
to  inherit  all  fitting  solemnities  from  both  lines  in  the 
duality  of  old,  the  prophetical  here,  and  the  sacerdotal 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  91 

there ;  now  to  be  only  one — the  word,  sacraments,  prayer 
and  singing  praise  for  ever. 

On  the  other  hand,  how  different  was  his  bearing 
toward  the  temple  !  When  his  disciples  came  to  show 
him  the  buildings  of  the  temple,  he  prophesied  imme- 
diately its  ruin,  "  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  There  shall 
not  be  left  here  one  stone  upon  another,  that  shall  not 
be  thrown  down."  Although  he  taught  at  the  temple 
assiduously,  and  performed  benignant  cures,  and  zeal- 
ously protested  against  the  degeneracy  and  pollution 
M'ith  which  it  was  defiled,  this  ministration  was  that 
of  a  prophet  rather  than  of  a  priest — the  same  that 
he  exercised  in  the  synagogue,  where  ceremonies  gave 
place  to  instruction,  ritualism  to  education  and  shad- 
ows to  substance.  In  all  this  the  apostles  followed 
their  Master,  and,  though  entrusted  with  the  work  of 
laying  foundations  and  formulating  for  the  future  of 
the  Church,  they  confessed  that  "  other  foundation  can 
no  man  lay  than  that  is  laid,"  and  virtually  owned 
that  other  ecclesia  could  not  be  built  than  what  had 
been  erected  in  at  least  forty-eight  particular  places,  to 
which  official  teachers  had  been  assigned  by  divine 
direction.  Tiiis  was  manifested  in  their  "  Acts,"  and 
in  their  silence  also.  Wherever  thev  could  obtain  the 
opportunity,  in  missions  at  home  or  abroad,  they  taught 
and  worked  at  the  synagogue,  of  course  complying  with 
all  the  becoming  regulations  of  this  institution.  It  had 
passed  through  many  changes  in  coming  down  from 
their  fathers  without  altering  the  main  features  with 
which  it  had  been  constituted,  and  so  it  should  be  con- 
tinued. In  details  of  usage  accommodated  to  circum- 
stances and  people  of  different  kinds,  it  had  always 
fitted  the  occasion  and  the  need ;  so  it  should  be  now. 


92  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

The  gospel  in  types  and  signs  of  sacramental  signifi- 
cance suited  to  the  faith  of  their  fathers  in  mode  was 
now  to  be  the  gospel  finished  and  proclaimed  to  all 
people,  testified  and  signed  by  sacraments  of  conspicu- 
ous simplicity  which  would  last  for  ever.  This  was  no 
revolution  of  ecclesia,  but  only  that  versatile  conformity 
which  it  was  made  to  exhibit  from  its  origin  as  a  system 
in  which  the  "  many  nations "  that  are  covenanted  to 
Abraham  as  an,  ecclesiastical  father  have  ever  found, 
and  will  ever  find,  authority,  liberty  and  law  combined 
essentially,  whatever  may  be  the  variations  of  method 
and  administration. 

Here  we  may  quote  the  words  of  Archbishop  Whately 
of  Dublin  in  signal  adaptation  to  the  conclusion  we 
reach  :  "  It  appears  highly  probable — I  may  say  morally 
certain — that  wherever  a  Jewish  synagogue  existed  that 
was  brought,  the  whole  or  the  chief  part  of  it,  to  em- 
brace the  gospel,  the  apostles  did  not  there  so  much 
form  a  Christian  church  as  make  an  existing  congregation 
Christian  by  introducing  the  Christian  sacraments  and 
worship  and  establishing  whatever  regulations  were 
requisite  for  the  newly-adopted  faith,  leaving  the  ma- 
chinery (if  I  may  so  speak)  of  government  unchanged^ 
the  rulers  of  synagogues,  elders,  and  other  officers 
(whether  spiritual  or  ecclesiastical,  or  both),  being  al- 
ready provided  in  the  existing  institutions ;  and  it  is 
likely  that  several  of  the  earliest  Christian  churches  did 
originate  in  this  way — that  is,  that  they  were  converted 
synagogues  which  became  Christian  churches  as  soon  as 
the  members,  or  the  main  part  of  the  members,  ac- 
knowledged Jesus  as  the  Messiah."  (See  Kingdom  of 
Christ,  Essay  2.)  This  concession,  with  his  o^vn  italics, 
must  bring  this  learned  and  eminent  prelate  precisely  to 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  93 

the  logical  position  we  take  in  rolling  over  the  burden 
of  proof  upon  those  who  say  that  the  synagogue  as  well 
as  the  temple  was  '*  destined  to  pass  away  "  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  Christian  Church.  This  beginning  was 
the  "  converted  synagogue,"  and  converted  by  "  intro- 
ducing the  Christian  sacraments  and  worship,"  with 
regulations  becoming  the  change,  "  leaving  the  ma- 
chinery of  government  unchanged." 

The  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  loud  as  words  of  the  apos- 
tles could  be,  simply  proceeded  on  the  assumption  that 
the  Church  of  their  childhood  was  the  Church  of  all 
ages,  in  which  the  seat  of  Moses  should  be  occupied 
henceforth  by  the  presiding  elder,  called  bishop — one 
who  would  be  heard  and  heeded  when  his  works  would 
correspond  to  his  word,  unlike  his  predecessors  of  the 
scribes  and  Pharisees.  Accordingly,  they  went  forth 
in  missionary  work  to  "  ordain  elders  in  every  church  " 
without  the  slightest  intimation  of  this  feature  as  a  new 
one,  but  as  one  of  course  in  perpetuating  the  Church  of 
their  fathers ;  and  when  they  passed  beyond  the  terri- 
tory of  converted  synagogues  to  the  Gentiles,  and  or- 
ganized the  Church  among  converts,  it  must  have 
been  done  after  the  same  order,  because  no  mention  is 
made  of  the  contrary,  and  because  Jewish  and  Gentile 
converts  at  Antioch,  who  differed  about  circumcision, 
had  no  difference  about  church  government,  but  agreed 
to  send  commissioners  to  Jerusalem  "unto  the  apostles 
and  elders  about  this  question  "  on  which  they  did  differ. 
And,  following  "  Paul  and  Barnabas  and  certain  other 
of  them  "  to  this  council  assembled,  we  can  see  in  the 
deliberation  there  the  parity  of  ministers,  the  office  of 
ruling  elder  and  the  judicatory  composed  of  both  con- 
ferring, debating  and  deciding — not  to  send  down  advice 


94  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

merely,  but  to  promulge  decrees  that  were  "necessary 
things  "  to  be  obeyed ;  and  this  obedience  was  to  be  the 
compliance  of  charity  with  a  charitable  injunction,  for 
the  most  part,  to  abstain  from  the  appearance  of  evil. 
In  short,  the  old  ecclesiastical  institute  is  perpetuated 
in  the  Presbyterian  system  according  to  all  that  can  be 
gleaned  of  apostolic  measures  and  methods;  and  the  more 
exact  correspondence  will  appear  in  our  subsequent  dis- 
cussion of  details  respecting  the  congregation — members, 
officers,  service,  privilege  and  judicature — and  we  close 
this  chapter  with  a  r6sum6  of  particulars  in  which  it  is 
now  conceded  by  learned  and  eminent  divines  in  the 
Church  of  England  that  the  Christian  churches  of  the 
first  two  centuries  were  modelled  after  the  synagogue, 
and  not  after  the  temple : 

1.  The  titles  of  office  were  the  same  as  the  former,  and 
not  the  latter.  "  Elders,"  "  bishops,"  "  deacons,"  Avere 
the  names,  never  "  priests." 

2.  The  places  of  worship  were  anywhere,  and  not 
confined  to  one  place,  either  of  exclusive  offering  or  of 
superior  sanctity.  The  place  was  a  parish,  and  not  a 
diocese  for  the  elders  or  bishops  of  one  church  to  super- 
intend. 

3.  The  exercises  of  divine  service  in  the  Christian 
churches  corresponded  to  those  of  the  synagogue,  and 
not  to  those  of  the  temple. 

4.  No  badges  of  office  or  peculiar  vestments  were 
worn  by  Christian  ministers,  who  in  this  respect  were 
like  elders  of  the  synagogue,  and  quite  different  from 
priests  of  the  temple. 

5.  No  restriction  of  the  ministry  or  eldership  to  a 
particular  tribe  or  class  of  people,  as  in  the  temple,  was 
ever  applied  to  the  candidacy  for  office,  either  in  the 


THE  ECCLESIASTICAL  INSTITUTE.  95 

synagogue  or  in  the  Christian  church.  Any  qualified 
person  might  officiate  in  the  Jewish  or  the  Christian 
church  when  called  to  do  so  in  the  due  order.  They 
were  born  to  it  at  the  temple. 

6.  Neither  was  there  exclusion  either  of  youth  or  of 
old  age  at  all  fit  for  sacred  service — not  even  of  bodily 
defects  or  of  infirmities  of  health — in  the  synagogue  or 
the  church.  Quite  different,  this,  from  the  temple  ex- 
actness. 

7.  No  altar  stood  either  in  synagogue  or  in  church.  A 
desk  raised  up  for  the  reader  in  the  synagogue,  and  a 
similar  arrangement  for  the  preacher  in  the  church,  were 
all  the  fixtures  of  eminence  in  either  assembly.  But  we 
know  that  in  the  temple  an  altar  was  the  main  feature — 
one  for  sacrifice,  and  another  for  incense.  So  prominent 
was  this  article  in  the  sacredness  that  after  the  temple 
was  no  more  the  word  ''  altar  "  continued  as  a  metaphor 
of  worship  in  the  Christian  vocabulary  through  all  gen- 
erations. It  seems,  therefore,  a  confusion  of  sense  in 
using  this  word  now  in  both  the  literal  and  the  meta- 
phorical meaning.  Helping  the  senses  by  the  visible 
image  of  au  altar  in  the  sanctuary  is  hardly  congruous 
with  help  to  the  soul  in  spiritual  oblation  as  it  communes 
with  Him  "  who  hath  by  one  offering  for  ever  perfected 
them  that  are  sanctified." 


CHAPTER   IV. 

CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

¥E  may  affirm  of  church  government  what  a  re- 
nowned President  affirmed  of  government  in  the 
United  States — that  it  is  "  of  the  people,  by  the  peo- 
ple and  for  the  people,"  only  substituting  for  "people" 
in  the  first  clause  the  "  Christ "  who  has  all  the  o-overn- 
ment  "  upon  his  shoulder."  Isa.  ix.  6.  Of  course,  the 
principle  of  representation  must  have  qualified  that  re- 
publican utterance  just  quoted,  in  the  second  phrase,  "by 
the  })eople,"  who  do  by  themselves  what  they  do  by 
others.  But  the  great  body  of  the  republic  was  first  in 
the  thought,  and  its  representation  second.  So  of  the 
Church  that  is  "  built  upon  the  foundation  of  the 
apostles  and  prophets,  Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the 
chief  corner-stone."  An  inspired  book,  faithful  in- 
terpreters, and  first  and  last  a  divine  person,  only  can 
begin  to  collect  the  great  suffi-agan  congregation  of 
God's  people.  Its  polity,  therefore,  should  begin  Math 
the  study  of  its  membership  rather  than  of  its  ministry. 
"All  baptized  persons  are  members  of  the  Church,  are 
under  its  care  and  subject  to  its  government  and  disci- 
pline ;  and  when  they  have  arrived  at  the  years  of  dis- 
cretion, they  are  bound  to  perform  all  the  duties  of 
church-members."  Lately  this  formula,  which  had 
been  satisfactory  to  the    Presbyterian   Church    in    past 

96 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  97 

generations,  has  been  altered  to  these  words :  "All  chil- 
dren, born  within  the  pale  of  the  visible  Church,  are 
members  of  the  Church,  are  to  be  baptized,  are  under 
the  care  of  the  Church,  and  subject  to  its  government 
and  discipline,"  etc. — that  is,  they  are  not  made  members 
by  the  ordinance  of  baptism,  because  it  is  their  birthright 
to  receive  it  and  all  the  privileges  to  which  it  is  the  formal 
initiation,  just  as  their  advancing  maturity  in  life  will 
evince  a  fitness  to  enjoy  this  and  that  particular  privilege 
when  recognized  by  constituted  authority  in  the  Church. 
"  The  pale,"  or  enclosure,  of  this  birthright  must  be  wide 
as  the  whole  visible  Church,  and  this  may  be  wide  as 
loyalty  itself  to  Him  who  has  "the  government  upon  his 
shoulder."  Every  form  of  visibility  is  loyal  to  Christ 
the  Head  which  witnesses  for  him  in  giving  his  word  to 
the  people,  the  scriptures  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment, to  be  heard  and  read  in  the  exercise  of  private 
judgment,  enforcing  the  behests  of  our  Lord  therein 
contained,  with  such  discipline  as  will  tend  to  purity 
of  doctrine  and  life,  communion  with  each  other,  and 
the  extension  of  his  kingdom  over  all  the  earth. 

The  membership  of  infants  in  this  great  common- 
wealth is  primary  and  indefeasible,  though  not  con- 
ceded by  certain  branches  that  refuse  baptism  to  babies, 
and  only  quasi  conceded  by  others  that  do  admit  them 
to  this  covenant  seal,  and  yet  qualify  as  merely  "con- 
structive "  the  census  which  enrolls  them  as  denizens  of 
the  kingdom  on  earth,  although  their  names  be  multi- 
tudinously  written  as  fully  members  in  the  Churcli  of 
the  first-born  in  heaven.  Even  civil  government  care- 
fully reckons  little  children  as  members  of  the  state 
and  fully  entitled  to  the  protection  of  any  right  accruing 
at  their  birth.  The  craving  of  our  nature  itself  is  to 
7 


98  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

have  a  record  of  births  in  the  Church,  and  to  signalize 
with  offices  of  religion  the  first  epoch  of  each  human 
personality.  "  The  mother  of  us  all "  should  not  be 
recreant  to  the  roll  and  seal  of  heirship  at  the  crisis 
when  a  mother's  care  and  close  attention  are  to  be  en- 
gaged as  is  never  possible  again  through  the  whole 
career  of  life. 

In  the  Old-Testament  Church  the  membership  of  in- 
fants and  recognition  of  it  in  a  sacrament  are  manifest 
and  incontestable,  and  we  readily  find  a  warrant  for  the 
same  in  the  New-Testament  dispensation  of  a  perpetual 
Church.  An  abundant  warrant  indeed  it  is,  argued 
from  the  identity  of  the  Church  under  both  dispensa- 
tions, the  clear  recognition  under  each  of  a  religious 
character  in  children,  the  great  maxim  of  all  economies 
that  a  privilege  once  granted  will  continue  to  be  of  right 
and  force  until  revoked  by  the  authority  which  gave  it, 
from  the  absence  of  all  complaint  on  the  part  of  believ- 
ing Jews  respecting  any  curtailment  of  ancient  privilege 
in  this  respect,  which  would  have  been  made  and  answered 
on  the  inspired  records  if  so  dear  a  privilege  under  the 
old  economy  had  to  be  surrendered  to  any  innovation  of 
the  new.  It  is  argued,  also,  from  the  express  declara- 
tion of  Peter  on  the  day  of  Pentecost — "  The  promise  is 
unto  you  and  to  your  children,"  etc. — which  by  no  tor- 
ture of  exegesis  can  be  made  to  drop  the  principle  of  repre- 
sentation in  parents,  and  from  the  examples  of  household 
baptism  given  in  the  New  Testament,  making  it  probable 
in  the  highest  degree  that  little  children  were  included 
in  the  administration  as  capable  of  "  receiving  the  Holy 
Ghost,"  as  well  as  their  parents,  who  were  young  enough 
to  be  engaged  in  the  activities  of  meridian  life.  These 
general  indications  cannot  be  more  than  hinted  here  in 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  99 

order  to  justify  the  com  prehension  of  parents  and 
children  together  in  the  congregation  of  a  visible 
church. 

To  a  people  so  constituted,  born  and  baptized  six 
main  privileges  belong — the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  household  baptism,  the  right  of  suffrage  in 
choosing  spiritual  officers,  the  exercise  of  gifts  in  sub- 
jection to  decency  and  order,  the  nurture  and  admonition 
of  discipline,  and  the  missionary  consecration  devolved 
by  the  great  commission  of  our  ascending  Lord.  For 
the  enjoyment  of  such  privileges  there  is  a  fitting  pre- 
requisite to  each  one  to  be  recognized  by  proper  authority. 
There  is  no  participation  as  matter  of  course,  unchecked 
and  ungoverned,  in  the  house  and  kingdom  of  Christ. 
No  birthright  liberty  in  any  kind  of  government  may 
venture  on  privilege  without  reins  of  control  to  speed 
or  estop  the  exercise  of  right  in  any  individual.  The 
man  who  is  born  in  our  land  has,  of  course,  the  rights 
of  a  citizen,  and  yet  these  rights  may  be  fenced  off  with 
special  qualification  to  be  manifest  or  deponed  without 
the  slightest  invasion  of  birthright.  He  must  pay  his 
tax  before  he  can  vote  at  the  polls.  He  must  reach  a 
certain  maturity  of  age  before  he  can  dispose  of  his 
property.  He  must  qualify  in  the  value  of  what  he 
possesses  before  he  is  accepted  as  a  surety  for  his  friend. 
So,  and  much  more,  because  they  are  sacred  and  critical, 
must  it  be  with  all  the  privileges  pertaining  to  the  com- 
monwealth of  true  religion. 

Let  us  consider  now  the  first  great  privilege  of  a 
baptized  member — to  commune  at  the  Lord's  Supper. 
Our  Directory  for  Worship  (chap,  ix.)  requires  the  quali- 
fication of  "sufficient  knowledge  to  discern  the  Lord's 
body,"  "  the  years  of  discretion,"  and  all  other  qualifi- 


100  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

cations  of  the  candidate,  to  be  "  left  to  the   elders  as 
judges,"  who  are  to  examine  him  as  to  "knowledge  and 
piety."     Such  is  the  summary  of  qualification  to  be  re- 
quired for  this  "sealing  ordinance."     And  yet  simple 
and  practicable  as  all  this  may  seem,  no  question  has 
agitated  Puritan  and  Presbyterian  churches  in  the  past 
more  grievously,  if  not  divisively,  than  the  terms  of  ad- 
mission to  the  Lord's  Table.     Only  the  truly  converted 
who  are  born  again  may  worthily  partake.     The  reality 
of  this  prerequisite,  however,  cannot  be  ascertained   by 
the  judicial  penetration  even  of  spiritual  men,  for  the 
secret   of  true   conversion    escapes   the    observation   of 
men,  and  often  even  the  consciousness  of  him  who  has 
it.     Besides,  the  work  of  grace  in  the  hearts  of  men  is 
indefinitely  diversified.     While  the  main  characteristics 
of  a  saving  change  must  be  alike  in  the  rise  and  progress 
of  a  new  life,  the  time,  the  occasion,  the  ways  and  the 
means  of  the  new  birth  are  as  various  in  experience  as 
the  faces  of  men  to  the  eye  of  observation.     While  the 
common  lineaments  of  human  visage  are  the  same  in 
contour,  no  two  are  exactly  alike  in  shades  of  expression 
and  minute  configuration.     Perhaps  the  diversities  of 
religious  experience  are  greater  than  these,  because  God 
only  knows  the  transition  from  death  to  life  in  any  in- 
dividual and  keeps  the  secret  in  his  own  book  of  life, 
while  the  ordinary  features  of  such  a  change  will  be 
manifest  as  an  epistle  from  him  to  be  seen  and  read  of 
all  men. 

This  manifestation  to  spiritual  men  is  what  they  call 
a  credible  profession.  We  take  middle  ground  between 
two  opposite  extremes  on  this  important  question.  The 
officer  who  acts  in  admitting;  a  member  to  full  com- 
munion  is  not  to  be  guided  by  the  measure  of  his  own 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  101 

personal  experience,  nor  even  by  suspicions  of  genuine- 
ness in  the  candidate's  avowal.  If  the  form  of  expres- 
sion be  faultless  and  the  narration  of  experience  be 
probable  on  its  face,  in  accord  with  terms  of  com- 
munion expressed  in  the  Bible,  and  if  no  inconsistency 
of  moral  conduct  be  observed  to  make  the  Session  doubt 
sincerity  in  a  candidate,  the  judgment  of  charity  is 
that  the  profession  is  credible  and  private  surmises 
should  be  held  in  abeyance.  Mistake  in  the  case  will 
not  spoil  but  mix  the  visible  Church  at  present — an 
evil  which  our  insight  may  abate,  but  cannot  prevent. 
There  is  more  difficulty  at  the  other  extreme.  If 
we  are  not  required  to  be  inwardly  and  individually 
sure,  why  should  we  inquire  at  all  respecting  the  con- 
version of  an  applicant  who  comes  without  a  visible 
spot  on  his  moral  character,  and  with  intelligent  appre- 
hension of  the  responsibilities  assumed  in  full  com- 
munion at  the  sacrament?  why  search  his  heart  with 
catechetical  inquisition  to  find  out  the  work  of  the 
Spirit  there?  If  the  Church  is  mixed,  as  it  must  be 
wherever  it  is  visible  in  this  world,  and  Ave  know  that 
the  overruling  goodness  and  wisdom  of  God  will  meli- 
orate the  world  with  such  a  mixture,  why  should  we 
not  consent  in  form,  as  well  as  in  fact,  to  this  constitu- 
tion, and  ask  no  other  terms  of  communion  than  ade- 
quate intelligence  and  a  good  moral  character?  Ques- 
tions like  these  divide  opinion  among  the  best  of  men 
to  this  day.  Calvin  differed  from  Zwingli  and  Luther; 
American  Presbyterians  differ  generally  from  the  Pres- 
byterians of  Europe  ;  Jonathan  Edwards  differed  from 
his  predecessor  at  Northampton,  the  pious  Stoddard, 
and  on  that  account  was  driven  from  a  pastoral  charge 
where  Pentecostal  effusion  had  honored  his  ministry. 


102  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Let  us,  therefore,  consider  in  brief  a  subject  of  so  much 
practical  importance. 

Is  a  good  moral  character,  along  with  competent 
knowledge  and  sincere  desire,  sufficient  qualification  for 
admission  to  the  eucharist,  or  should  we  insist  on  more 
evidence  in  the  fruits  of  genuine  "  piety  "  and  examine 
a  candidate,  as  he  is  required  to  examine  himself, 
"  whether  he  be  in  the  faith "  as  it  works  by  love, 
purifies  the  heart  and  overcomes  the  world  ?  We 
affirm,  in  answer  to  this  latter  query,  assuming,  of 
course,  that  the  sacrament  is  not  a  converting  ordinance 
to  the  worthy  partaker  himself,  though  it  may  be  to  the 
spectator  who  looks  upon  it  as  the  "visible  Word."  To 
the  believing  receiver  it  is  a  sisrn  and  seal  of  what  he 
has  already  in  possession,  and  it  is  the  quality  of  his 
title  to  such  possession  that  we  look  up  in  searching  the 
record  of  his  lips  and  life. 

(1)  Our  examination  of  an  applicant  must  aim  at  the 
same  thing  that  his  own  examination  of  himself  does  in 
the  dire(^'tion  of  the  Church  invisible — according  to  the 
apostolic  injunction,  to  see  whether  he  be  in  the  faith 
and  Jesus  Christ  be  formed  within  him  by  faith,  or 
whether  his  approach  is  but  the  venture  of  "reprobate" 
hypocrisy.  Here  precisely  we  have  use  for  that  re- 
markable text,  "  The  Lord  added  to  the  church  daily 
such  as  should  be  saved."  It  blends  the  visible  and 
the  invisible  so  closely  too^ether  in  ecclesia  that  they  are 
scarcely  distinguishable  from  each  other  at  all  by  any 
translation  that  is  just.  The  clause  may  be  rendered  simply 
"  the  saved,"  or  that  "  are  being  saved,"  or  that  "  will  be 
saved,"  or  that  "  should  be  saved,"  as  in  our  Authorized 
Version,  but  in  any  and  every  way  it  means  that  accession 
to  the  visible  Church  is  in  pursuit  of  true  salvation  surely 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  103 

realized  in  the  Church  invisible.  The  scope  of  this  passage 
for  such  a  proof  must  be  that  all  concerned  in  adding 
converts  to  the  church  must  look  for  good  evidence  of 
saving  faith  at  the  entrance.  Of  course  the  Anglican 
predominance  in  the  late  New-Testament  revision,  which 
strikes  out  of  the  Dassao-e  auv  mention  of  ''the  Church" 
at  all  in  rendering  it,  would  deprive  us  of  our  illustra- 
tion here.  The  revisers  blot  ixzy^-^tr/^  (the  "  Clmrch"), 
found  in  the  original,  with  the  phrase  "  to  them/'  and 
allege  in  the  margin  that  "  ecclesia  "  means  "  together"  ! 
The  sacred  technicalitv  must  be  reduced  to  a  skeleton 
of  etymology,  and  the  very  first  historical  use  o^  ixxAr^aia 
in  the  New  Testament  has  been  suppressed — apparently 
in  the  interest  of  that  ecclesiasticism  which  hides  the 
obvious  identification  of  the  new  with  the  old  ecclesia 
and  prefers  the  temple  hierarchy  to  the  Christian 
church  for  a  model.*  The  distinction  of  visible  and 
invisible  in  the  word  "ecclesia"  does  not  make  two 
churches,  but  one,  as  much  as  body  and  soul  are  one 
person  and  scaffold  and  walls  are  one  erection.  We  are 
to  admit  to  full  communion  members  of  the  visible  on 
the  fair  presumption  that  they  are  already  of  the  in- 
visible Church,  and  this  presumption  is  authorized  on 
proper  examination  of  their  "knowledge  and  piety." 

(2)  The  same  is  argued  from  the  true  nature  of  a 
sacrament,  which  is  to  signify  and  seal  to  us  what  is 
already  possessed  by  the  soul,  and  not  to  impart  any- 
thing more  than  the  increase  of  strength  and  comfort  in 
the  enjoyment  of  what  has  been  antecedently  imparted. 
Otherwise,  we  pervert  the  sacrament.  If  a  man  is  not 
converted  in  order  to  partake  of  the  blessings  conveyed 
in  the  ordinance,  he  must  partake  of  them  in  order  to 

*  See  the  Commentary  of  Dr.  Addison  Alexander,  Acts  ii.  47. 


104  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

be  converted.  If  the  Supper  be  not  the  children's  bread 
only  as  they  hunger  and  thirst  for  righteousness,  it  is 
bread  for  those  who  eat  in  order  to  be  hungry  and  drink 
in  order  to  be  thirsty,  and  is  therefore  without  signifi- 
cancy  and  is  abused. 

(3)  The  duty  of  open  profession  implies  it.  One  who 
is  savingly  converted  and  feels  the  power  of  redeeming 
grace  and  mercy  will  publish  what  God  has  done  for 
his  soul.  The  first  and  best  occasion  for  this  will  be  his 
entrance  into  full  communion  with  God's  people  and 
their  Saviour  at  the  sacrament  of  the  Supper.  It  is  the 
test  of  loyalty  and  obedience,  and  we  can  stand  it  only 
when  we  "  obey  from  the  heart "  and  confess  from  the 
heart :  "  With  the  heart  man  believeth  unto  righteous- 
ness, and  with  the  mouth  confession  is  made  unto  salva- 
tion." But  if  the  heart  be  not  inquired  for  at  all  at  the 
entrance,  if  the  man  of  faith  and  the  man  of  morality 
are  alike  received,  without  attempting  discrimination,  on 
the  part  of  those  who  have  the  keys,  where  else  can  the 
opportunity  be  found  for  signal  attestation  of  divine 
mercy  in  the  work  of  saving  change? 

(4)  A  credible  profession  of  saving  faith  is  required, 
also,  to  distingush  holiness  from  morality,  while  it  in- 
cludes it  before  the  world.  If  the  Church  will  not 
endeavor  to  separate  the  precious  from  the  vile,  in  kind 
as  well  as  degree,  by  requiring  evidence  of  regeneration 
at  her  gates,  she  ceases  to  stand  before  man  as  a  witness 
for  God,  a  royal  priesthood,  an  holy  nation,  a  peculiar 
people.  She  obliterates  the  line  between  morality  and 
grace.  If  the  world  can  see  that  the  level  of  her  own 
decency  and  moral  sincerity  is  high  enough  for  admis- 
sion to  the  Church,  it  will  be  apt  to  conclude  it  is  safe 
enough  to  enter  heaven  also. 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  105 

(5)  The  ordinance  of  discipline  imports  the  same 
economy  in  its  principles — that  credible  evidence  of  re- 
generation should  be  had  of  such  as  come  to  the  privilege 
of  full  communion.  Discipline  were  not  needed  in  the 
Church  distinctively  if  its  aim  be  not  to  secure  a  higher 
sanctification  than  what  satisfies  the  world.  When  the 
oifender  is  to  be  restored,  it  must  be  on  confession  of 
sincere  repentance.  But  repentance  ''  is  a  saving  grace" 
manifesting  fruits  meet  for  repentance,  and  therefore  evi- 
dence of  true  regeneration,  and  to  say  that  returning 
children  are  to  be  passed  on  stricter  terms  than  are  re- 
quired of  strangers  at  tlie  gate  is  incongruity  in  man- 
aging the  house  of  Christ. 

(6)  Acts  of  the  Apostles  bind  us  to  require  more  than 
good  character  and  adequate  intelligence.  The  first  three 
thousand  on  the  day  of  Pentecost  were  accepted  on  the 
declaration  of  repentance  felt  in  the  heart,  and,  receiving 
the  word,  were  baptized  for  the  remission  of  sins,  and, 
receiving  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  "  continued  in  the 
apostles'  doctrine  and  fellowshij)."  When  the  eunuch 
desired  baptism  of  Philip,  the  latter  said,  "If  thou 
believest  with  all  thine  heart  thou  mayest."  When  the 
apostles  wrote  letters,  they  sent  them  with  greeting  to 
the  "  saints,"  which  they  received  also  from  the  "  saints." 
These  were  admonished  in  terms  which  accredited  the 
genuineness  of  their  faith,  and  their  faults  and  follies  were 
censured  in  expressions  of  surprise  and  sorrow,  evincing 
that  the  presumption  of  true  godliness  belonged  to  their 
profession.  If  no  evidence  of  real  conversion  had  been 
required  at  the  entrance,  the  style  of  apostolic  salutation 
is  chargeable  as  hollow  courtesy  and  empty  compliment. 

These  are  some  arguments  for  the  current  usage  of 
American  Presbyterians  in  searching  for  more  than  sin- 


106  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

cerity,  knowledge  and  good  morals  on  the  part  of  candi- 
dates for  admission  to  sealing  ordinances,  but  we  must 
not  overlook  another  side  or  slight  the  objections  which 
good  and  great  men  have  urged  in  demurrer  to  the  usage, 
though  complying  with  it  in  form. 

(1)  They  ask  why,  when  we  maintain  the  min- 
gled condition  of  membership  in  the  visible  Church — 
recognized,  though  regretted,  and  abundantly  signified  as 
a  necessary  fact  in  the  parables  uttered  by  our  Lord  him- 
self— we  do  not  suifer  this  mixture  with  our  free  consent, 
but  seek  to  make  the  Church  what  we  know  she  never 
can  become — perfectly  pure  on  earth.  It  is  enough  to 
answer  that  facts  are  not  the  rule  of  duty  in  our  faith- 
fulness. We  know  that  individual  believers  can  never 
attain  to  perfection  in  the  present  life,  but  shall  we  there- 
fore not  attempt  it  in  following  the  example  of  Christ 
with  our  best  endeavor?  Because  the  marksman  at  his 
distance  cannot  drive  the  centre  of  his  aim,  shall  he  not 
try  it?  Because  evil  is  overruled  for  good  in  the  gov- 
ernment of  God,  shall  we  any  the  less  resist  the  evil 
and  avoid  it  to  the  whole  extent  of  our  discernment? 
Credible  evidence  of  a  perfect  change  in  the  heart  of  a 
neophyte  is  what  charity  itself  requires,  although  "  we 
know  in  part,  and  prophesy  in  part,"  only,  in  the  judg- 
ment of  his  worthiness. 

(2)  It  is  objected  that  the  Israelites  of  old  were  called 
God's  people  and  admitted  to  the  passover  at  times  when 
no  judgment  of  charity  could  accredit  their  genuine  piety. 
This  objection  assumes  too  much  for  the  objector  himself. 
Those  ancient  church-members  at  such  times  were  with- 
out the  moral  sincerity,  blameless  life  and  competent  in- 
telligence which  the  objector  demands  for  indispensable 
terms  of  admission.    Besides,  there  was  a  double  mixture 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  107 

in  those  theocratic  times  of  church-membership  :  Church 
and  State  united,  as  well  as  the  true  and  the  seeming, 
under  the  seal  of  circumcision.  The  passover,  also, 
was  a  national  celebration  as  well  as  sacrament  of  the 
Church.  This  external  relation  alone,  so  constituted, 
would  make  them  distinct  among  the  nations  as  people 
of  God  when  such  denomination  was  by  no  means  the 
same  as  "  saints "  in  the  parlance  of  New-Testament 
times. 

Yet  there  was  much  discrimination  made  of  old  in  the 
qualificalion  of  worthy  participants :  the  presumptuous 
sinner,  the  stranger,  the  apostate,  the  ceremonially  un- 
clean, were  excluded.  The  hypocrite  was  challenged 
severely :  "  When  ye  come  to  appear  before  me,  who 
hath  required  this  at  your  hands,  to  tread  my  courts?" 
"  I  hate,  I  despise,  your  feast-days,  and  I  will  not  smell 
in  your  solemn  assemblies."  When  God  was  about  to 
choose  a  man  "after  his  own  heart,"  and  the  sons  of 
Jesse  were  ''  sanctified  and  called  to  the  sacrifice,"  the 
memorable  words  of  direction  Avere  given  to  Samuel  not 
to  look  on  the  countenance  or  anything  specious  exter- 
nally, for  "  man  looketh  on  the  outward  appearance,  but 
the  Lord  looketh  on  the  heart."  Admitting  that  less  of 
heart-religion  was  required  for  the  ancient  passover,  is 
not  God  represented  as  finding  fault  with  that  economy, 
and  is  not  the  new  mentioned  as  a  time  of  "reforma- 
tion "  ?  This  reformation  is  described  abundantly  in  the 
prophecies  of  old  as  consisting  in  the  greater  purity  of 
New-Testament  membership,  such  as  Isa.  iv.  3  :  "And 
it  shall  come  to  pass  that  he  that  is  left  in  Zion,  and  he 
that  remaiueth  in  Jerusalem,  shall  be  called  holy,  even 
every  one  that  is  written  among  the  living  in  Jerusalem." 

(3)  The  objection  from  the  case  of  Judas  Iscariot  may 


108  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

be  disposed  of  in  the  same  way  substantially.  Whether 
he  did  actually  partake  of  the  Lord's  Supper  at  the 
original  institution  is  left  iu  doubt  by  all  the  "  Har- 
raouies,"  seeing  three  of  the  evaugelists  apparently  on 
one  side  and  one  on  the  other,  the  order  of  time  being 
so  incidental  in  sacred  narratives,  and  the  certainty  of 
our  conclusion  on  such  a  point  being  so  unimportant. 
It  is  certain  that  Judas  had  not  the  moral  sincerity  and 
the  knowledge  to  "  discern  the  Lord's  body  "  as  it  is  ex- 
hibited in  the  sacrament,  both  of  which  the  objector  de- 
mands for  terms  of  communion.  And  it  is  entirely 
certain  that  our  Lord  was  not  deceived  in  the  man 
at  all :  "  Have  I  not  chosen  you  twelve,  and  one  of 
you  hath  a  devil  ?"  "  Now  are  ye  clean,  but  not  all ;" 
"  One  of  you  shall  betray  me ;"  ''  That  thou  doest  do 
quickly."  However  inexplicable  the  case  of  Judas  iu 
regard  to  fellowship,  motives,  remorse,  etc.,  one  lesson  is 
clear  to  us,  and  quite  sufficient  ecclesiastically,  and  that  is 
that  our  Lord,  officiating  first  as  an  example  to  his  min- 
istering servants  through  all  future  time  in  condescension 
to  our  weakness  and  liability  to  err  in  judging  men,  laid 
aside  as  it  were  for  the  moment  his  prerogative  to  search 
and  know  the  hearts  of  men  and  took  them  at  what  they 
professed  to  be,  leaving  in  this  a  signal  monition  that  his 
ministers  should  keep  their  own  surmises  in  abeyance 
and  suffer  the  credible  in  a  religious  profession  to  share 
the  confidence  of  charity. 

(4)  Another  objection  is  brought  from  the  baptism  of 
infants.  If  we  receive  them  to  a  sealing  ordinance  with- 
out the  possibility  of  knowing  whether  they  have  shared 
a  new  birth  of  the  soul,  why  not  receive  adults  of  good 
moral  character  without  seeking  after  any  evidence  of 
regeneration  besides?     It  is  enough  to  answer  that  from 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  109 

a  total  impossibility  in  one  case  we  may  not  argue  against 
a  proximate  possibility  in  another  which  is  different. 
Each  appointment  of  God  must  be  observed  according 
to  its  own  nature.  When  he  sanctions  the  application 
of  a  seal  to  one  class  of  persons  who  are  incapable  of 
actual  faith,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  sanctions  the 
seal  as  applied  to  those  who  are  capable  witliout  fairly 
testing  their  faith  according  to  his  word.  We  search 
only  for  signs  of  true  conversion,  whether  these  are 
seen  in  the  hopeful  interpretation  of  a  promise — "To 
you  and  to  your  children  " — or  in  the  credibility  of  an 
honest  avowal.  Now,  the  faith  of  a  godly  parent  in 
trusting  a  promise  for  the  salvation  of  his  seed  will 
warrant  a  presumption  fairly  as  the  ingenuous  narrative 
of  adult  experience  will  effect  in  our  administration  of 
the  seals.  In  fact,  thus  far,  the  aggregate  of  admissions 
to  full  communion  will  show  that  the  hope  of  the  Church 
is  not  disappointed  in  gathering  into  the  fold  a  covenanted 
seed  sprinkled  in  infancy  as  much  as  in  even  the  crowded 
accession  of  professing  proselytes. 

(5)  The  difficulty  of  fixing  the  standard  is  another 
point  of  objection.  No  two  believers  have  had  pre- 
cisely the  same  history  of  a  saving  change ;  therefore, 
no  two  or  three  elders  can  unite  properly  in  judgment, 
as  they  must  naturally  bring  to  it  the  process  of  their 
own  individual  experience.  This  would  be  plausible, 
and  perhaps  unanswerable,  if  any  other  kind  of  standard 
could  be  fixed  and  certain  in  its  application.  There 
are  more  imperfections  of  knowledge,  more  shades  of 
character  and  more  deo-rees  of  moral  sincerity  reckoned 
than  all  the  varieties  of  spiritual  experience  expressed 
by  the  candidates.  A  germ  of  genuine  godliness  will 
always  be  more  easily  ascertained  than  competency  of 


110  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

knowledge,  morality  and  sincere  desire.  Diversified 
endlessly  in  every  condition  of  life,  it  has,  nevertheless, 
an  identity  which  few  spiritual  judges  can  fail  to  dis- 
cern or  the  range  of  charitable  circumspection  fail  to 
recognize ;  and  its  far  greater  value,  when  fairly  accred- 
ited, will  justify  the  preference  of  "piety"  as  our  safe- 
guard, even  if  its  manifestations  were  equally  vague  and 
dubious,  for  it  ensures  every  other  test  which  can  be 
applied,  while,  reciprocally,  no  intelligence  nor  integrity 
nor  earnestness  of  soul  combined  could  ensure  it  or 
secure  its  welcome  into  the  confederacy  of  faithful 
Christians. 

These  indications  of  thought  on  a  subiect  which  lies 
near  the  foundation  of  the  visible  Church  on  earth 
should  balance  our  minds  and  guard  us  against  enthu- 
siasm on  the  one  hand  and  indifference  on  the  other — 
from  the  Anabaptist  figment  of  a  perfectly  holy  Church 
on  the  one  hand  and  the  papal  arrogance  of  infallible 
visibility  on  the  other.  Moderation  here  should  be 
known  to  all  men,  and  would  do  much  in  this  life  to 
make  the  Church  a  "  pillar  and  ground  of  truth  "  and 
her  conduct  "  without  spot  or  wrinkle  or  any  such 
thing." 


CHAPTER  V. 

CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH  {CONTINUED). 

A  SECOND  maiu  privilege  of  baptized  members 
-^^  may  be  called  household  baptism  in  the  family 
institute  as  a  distinct  bundle  of  care  in  the  bosom  of 
the  visible  Church.  Prior  in  form  to  the  enlargement 
of  Abram's  name,  as  we  see  afterward  in  his  life, 
when  the  promise  was  extended  and  he  was  made 
"father  of  many  nations"  and  the  ecclesiastical  cove- 
nant was  made  for  all  people  and  all  time,  this  original 
germ,  though  unsealed  at  first,  should  be  considered  as 
the  ecclesiastical  unit  and  be  continued  in  the  practice 
of  household  baptism  through  all  generations  of  New- 
Testament  time.  The  apostle  Peter  preached  it  at  the 
opening  of  this  new  dispensation  with  peculiar  em- 
phasis to  Jews  and  Gentiles  both.  The  former,  whose 
characteristic  jealousy  for  the  "  family  apart "  would 
meet  the  gospel  of  enlargement  with  murmur  at  the  loss 
of  this  privilege  under  the  Old-Testament  covenant,  he 
reassured  that  the  family  parcel  must  remain  to  in- 
herit the  promise  made  to  parents  for  them  and  their 
children,  and  that  with  a  new  form  of  the  seal  and  its 
enlargement  of  application  also :  "  Repent  and  be  bap- 
tized, every  one  of  you,  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ, 
for  the  remission  of  sins,  and  ye  shall  receive  the  gift 
of  the  Holy  Ghost.  For  the  promise  is  unto  you,  and 
to  your  children,  and  to  all  that  are  afar  off,  even  as 

111 


112  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

many  as  the  Lord  our  God  shall  call."  Acts  ii.  38,  39. 
Even  admitting  that  "  the  promise  "  here  mentioned  was 
not  distinctively  that  made  to  Abraham  and  his  seed, 
but  the  general  effusion  of  the  Spirit  witnessed  at  Pen- 
tecost and  predicted  "by  the  prophet  Joel,"  we  read  in 
that  prophecy  (Joel  ii.  28,  29)  a  detail  of  the  household 
corporeity  as  sharing  the  fulfilment :  "  Your  sons  and 
your  daughters,"  "Your  old  men"  and  "your  young 
men,"  "  The  servants  and  the  handmaids." 

When  we  turn  to  the  Gentiles,  whither  the  same 
apostle  was  constrained  by  concurrent  visions  to  go 
and  spread  the  gospel  (Acts  x.),  we  see  the  household 
of  Cornelius,  a  Roman  centurion,  the  first-fruits  of  the 
Gentile  world.  And  there  it  was  that  the  great  measure 
of  extension  for  the  ordinance  of  baptism  was  so  dis- 
tinctly uttered  by  the  apostle :  "  Can  any  man  forbid 
water,  that  these  should  not  be  baptized,  which  have 
received  the  Holy  Ghost  as  well  as  we?"  The  logic 
of  this  interrogatory  is  enough  to  bind  up  the  family 
asrain  as  a  unit  of  the  ecclesia  while  the  ministration 
of  the  Spirit  endures.  To  be  born  again,  "not  of 
blood,  nor  of  the  will  of  the  flesh,  nor  of  the  will  of 
man,  but  of  God,"  unites  a  living  soul  at  any  age  to 
the  Church  invisible;  and  to  be  born  at  all  where  means 
of  grace  are  had  unites  a  living  soul  at  any  age,  sus- 
ceptible as  all  ages  are  of  regeneration  by  the  Holy 
Ghost,  to  the  visible  Church  with  formal  initiation  by 
a  sacrament  of  God's  appointment.  And  means  of 
grace  are  most  efficacious  when  uniting  both  nativities 
in  one  effectual  calling. 

Believing  parents  lay  hold  of  two  covenants  in  the 
family  relation,  one  conditional,  the  other  unconditional. 
One  promises  a  prospered   succession  for  time  on   the 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  113 

presumption  that  father  and  son  will  be  respectively 
faithful  in  duty ;  the  other  promises  a  perfect  salvation 
to  the  believer  personally  on  the  presumption  that,  how- 
ever disappointed  he  may  be  in  the  lapse  of  a  family 
covenant,  he  may  repose  on  the  covenant  of  grace, 
whose  conditions  cannot  fail,  as  they  are  undertaken 
by  a  covenant  God  himself  For  illustration  we  may 
cite  the  family  records  of  a  remote  antiquity  when  this 
hallowed  integer  was  revealed  so  much  as  the  seed-plot 
of  both  Church  and  State.  When  "  Eli  the  priest," 
for  laxity  in  family  government  and  for  reproving  too 
daintily  the  profane  and  disreputable  conduct  of  his 
sons,  had  the  promise  revoked  in  his  old  age  and  the 
household  covenant  broken  before  his  eyes,  a  man  of 
God  explained  the  tenor  of  this  covenant  as  he  pro- 
ceeded to  announce  the  doom  of  its  infraction  :  "  The 
Lord  God  of  Israel  saith,  I  said  indeed  that  thy  house 
and  the  house  of  thy  father,  should  walk  before  me  for 
ever ;  but  now  tlie  Lord  saith,  Be  it  far  from  me ;  for 
them  that  honor  me,  I  will  honor,  and  they  that  despise 
me  shall  be  lightly  esteemed."  On  the  other  hand, 
among  "  the  last  words  of  David  "  we  read  the  consola- 
tion of  his  own  soul  in  the  covenant  of  grace  along 
with  sad  allusion  to  the  degeneracy  of  his  sons :  "  Al- 
though my  house  be  not  so  with  God ;  yet  he  hath 
made  with  me  an  everlasting  covenant,  ordered  in  all 
things  and  sure  :  for  this  is  all  my  salvation,  and  all 
my  desire,  although  he  make  it  not  to  grow."  2  Sam. 
xxiii.  5.  In  these  two  delineations  of  covenant  security 
we  see  what  a  privilege  is  the  family  tie — double  benefit 
and  double  blessing — for  the  life  that  now  is  and  that 
which  is  to  come,  when  both  covenants  are  kept,  and 
infinite  resources  of  hope,  contentment  and  solace  to  the 
8 


114  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

faithful  parent  or  child  when  the  conditional  one  fails 
in  calamities  or  unfaithful   collapse. 

The  next  thing  to  be  noticed  on  this  subject  is  the 
extent  of  the  household  itself,  or  the  proper  limit  to 
which  we  can  adjust  this  portion  of  the  apparent  body 
of  Christ.  May  the  head  of  the  house  present  for  bap- 
tism more  than  his  own  children  and  grandchildren? 
May  he  become  sponsor,  by  the  seal  of  this  ordinance, 
for  the  orphans  of  kinsfolk  cast  upon  his  tutelage  and 
care  in  their  infancy  or  childhood,  for  minoi-s  during 
the  tenderness  of  youth  committed  to  his  wardship  or  ap- 
prenticed by  civil  contract  in  childhood  and  to  be  trained 
to  work  under  his  direction  at  handicraft  or  agriculture  ? 
May  missionaries  present  the  little  ones  of  heathen 
parentage  over  whom  they  have  entire  control  in  home 
and  school  ?  May  deacons  to  whom  the  care  of  the  poor 
is  committed  present  the  little  children  left  in  orphanage 
on  their  hands  ?  To  these  questions  our  great  analogy 
of  the  Old-Testament  Church,  as  organized  at  first  in 
the  family  of  Abraham,  our  New-Testament  facts,  our 
traditions  of  usao;e  from  historical  churches  of  Protestant 
faith,  our  constitutional  principles  of  government  by  rep- 
resentation, and  the  acts  of  our  General  Assembly  on  ap- 
peal, reference,  review  and  control,  authorize  an  affirma- 
tive answer. 

The  sponsor's  fitting  prerequisite  qualification  is  an- 
other question  of  importance  in  discussing  the  privilege 
of  household  baptism.  The  Directory  enjoins  that 
"those  who  are  to  be  admitted  to  sealing  ordinances, 
shall  be  examined  as  to  their  knowledge  and  piety." 
Baptism  is  obviously  one  of  these  sealing  ordinances, 
and  what  is  required  of  the  unbaptized  adult — "  satis- 
faction with  respect  to  knowledge  and  piety" — should 


-CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  115 

be  required  of  the  baptized  adult  in  representing  the 
infant  or  child  when  making  the  profession  for  it  which 
baptism  signifies.  He  should  make  a  credible  profession 
of  true  piety  as  well  as  of  proper  knowlege,  and  either  one 
or  both  professing  parents,  when  giving  such  satisfaction, 
may  be  admitted  to  this  privilege  without  having  exer- 
cised any  other  public  privilege  in  the  church.  Privi- 
leges to  which  we  are  formally  admitted  in  baptism  are 
all  on  a  level,  to  be  distinctly  enjoyed  according  to  fit- 
ness and  opportunity.  To  make  one  the  condition  of 
another  is  neither  congruous  nor  equitable,  yet  a  prevail- 
ing practice  of  requiring  an  actual  participation  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  previously  by  one  or  both  of  the  parents 
is  advocated  on  the  plea  of  keeping  sacred  this  initial 
ordinance,  as  if  the  Supper  itself  should  be  initial  and 
made  to  supersede  the  special  examination  for  baptism 
also,  as  required  in  the  constitution.  More  than  this 
unauthorized  inversion,  it  is  derogatory  to  the  sealing 
ordinance  of  the  eucharist  when  we  make  it  a  test  in 
any  way  whatever — a  term  for  holding  office  in  the 
State,  or  sealing  the  solemnity  of  marriage,  or  admit- 
ting a  baptized  member  to  the  endeared  solemnity  of 
haviuoj  his  child  acknowledg-ed  a  member  of  the  visible 
Church.  While  it  seems  to  make  this  baptism  more 
unapproachably  sacred  it  really  tends  to  profanation  of 
the  Lord's  Supper,  when,  as  Dr.  Samuel  Miller  said,  we 
make  it  a  whip  to  drive  the  parents  into  full  communion 
at  the  sacraments ;  for  many  a  man  would  venture  to 
partake  unworthily  rather  than  fail  to  have  his  children 
baptized.  Most  of  all,  it  is  unscriptural.  The  facts  of 
household  baptism  in  sacred  history  preclude  the  possi- 
bility of  the  sponsor's  having  previously  partaken  of  the 
Lord's  Supper.     Surely  at  the  house  of  Cornelius  no  rite 


116  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  Christianity  aud  no  preparation  bnt  the  baptism  of  the 
Holy  Ghost  conditioned  the  baptism  with  water  of  its 
inmates.  And  so  of  the  two  household  baptisms  at 
Philippi — that  of  Lydia,  and  that  of  the  "  keeper  of 
the  prison :"  it  was  done  "  he  and  all  his  straightway." 
Acts.  xvi.  "  I  baptized  also  the  house  of  Stephanas/' 
said  the  apostle  Paul  in  one  place  (1  Cor.  i.  16),  and  in 
another  he  says  of  Stephanas  and  his  house  that  they 
were  "the  first-fruits  of  Achaia/'  intimating  plainly 
that  no  church  existed  at  Corinth  to  commune  with 
previously  to  their  baptism.   1  Cor.  xvi.  15. 

But,  although  the  practice  of  requiring  one,  at  least, 
of  the  baptized  members  who  seek  the  baptism  of  their 
child  to  be  a  full  communicant  is  Avithout  either  consti- 
tutional or  scriptural  warrant,  yet  the  same  "  knowledge 
and  piety"  as  that  required  for  admission  to  the  Lord's 
Supper  should  be  ascertained  as  the  prerequisite  for  this 
privilege  of  household  baptism.  It  is  expressly  required 
of  an  unbaptized  adult  seeking  the  ordinance  for  himself, 
and,  as  representative  of  the  infant,  having  been  baptized 
himself,  he  should  therefore  in  this  capacity  pledge  the 
prerequisite  for  his  child  by  his  own  confession.  Yet 
the  examination  of  such  a  candidate  should  have  a 
specialty  of  direction  corresponding  to  the  nature  of  the 
privilege  itself.  Instead  of  specially  searching  after 
evidence  of  personal  regeneration  in  the  narrative  of 
an  applicant's  experience,  the  object  of  examination  in 
this  case  will  be  the  credit  of  "  knowledge  and  piety  "  in 
the  moral  and  religious  character  of  a  baptized  parent, 
capacity  for  training  up  his  child  in  the  nurture  and 
admonition  of  our  Loi'd,  earnestness  and  regularity  in 
attending  on  the  means  of  grace,  and  that  probity  of 
character  in  the  world,  and  conscientious  conduct  which 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  117 

can  safely  be  trusted  in  keeping  promises,  paying  vows 
and  redeeming  pledges. 

This  requirement  of  qualification  for  household  bap- 
tism would  be  no  embarrassment  at  all  if  theory  in  our 
constitution  were  fairly  carried  out  in  practice  of  our 
government.  All  baptized  members  "  are  under  the 
care  of  the  Church,  and  subject  to  its  government  and 
discipline ;"  yet  our  church  government  over  this  class 
of  members  has  been  put  to  shame  in  the  practice  of 
civil  government  under  which  we  live.  From  the  rod 
of  parental  discipline,  even  before  maturity  of  age,  youth 
passes  over  to  the  civil  judiciary,  which  never  waits  to 
be  sought  after  before  dispensing  correction  by  its  vigi- 
lant officers  to  all  that  are  amenable  to  its  jurisdiction. 
And  why  should  our  Church  judiciary,  in  her  eldership, 
overlook  both  native  and  baptized  members  of  their 
community  until  they  are  puzzled  to  know  who  they 
are  and  whether  they  have  any  rights  in  court  or  com- 
petency to  receive  and  enjoy  them  ?  To  indulge  this  in- 
difference or  excuse  the  neglect  or  evade  the  reproach  of 
having  so  large  a  nondescript  ratio  of  members  loose 
from  the  Church,  and  satirized  by  Anabaptism  for  a 
century  past,  quite  a  variety  of  scheming  in  polity  has 
been  attempted. 

In  1859  it  was  proposed  to  the  General  Assembly 
(O.  S.)  by  an  important  committee,  appointed  two  years 
before,  to  dispense  with  formal  process  in  discipline 
against  baptized  members  and  confine  it  altogether  to 
the  offences  of  "  professed "  members.  Though  such 
had  been  the  general  usage  for  a  generation  and  more, 
although  but  one  vote  in  a  committee  of  nine  had  been 
reported  as  the  minority,  the  sense  of  that  body  was 
staggered  by  the  proposal  to  touch  the  old  formula  in 


118  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

any  way;  and  after  a  brief  and  animated. discussion  the 
report  was  recommitted  and  required  to  be  made  to  the 
next  Assembly.  At  the  next  the  discussion  was  resumed 
and  protracted,  with  strong  development  of  opposition 
to  that  solitary  change  on  which  the  debate  was  engrossed, 
and  again  the  report  was  recommitted  and  the  committee 
enlarged  with  a  single  eye  to  the  restoration  precisely  of 
the  original  words  in  the  book.  This  was  done  by  the 
enlarged  committee  in  1862  meeting  at  Pittsburg,  and  was 
unanimously  adopted  by  the  General  Assembly  of  1863. 
The  same  proceeding  occurred  twenty  years  later,  when 
another  committee  of  revision  appointed  by  the  reunited 
General  Assembly,  after  animated  and  prolonged  dis- 
cussion, reported  back  the  old  formula,  which  was  ap- 
proved again  in  the  General  Assembly,  and  finally 
adopted  by  a  majority  of  the  Presbyteries,  voting 
distinctly.  It  is  beyond  question  that  it  is  still  the 
settled  mind  of  the  Church  that  baptized  members  of 
the  Church  are  "  subject  to  her  government  and  disci- 
pline," just  as  communicating  members  are. 

Indeed,  the  distinction  of  "professed"  members  for 
the  latter  is  inconsistent  with  the  standards  of  all  his- 
torical churches,  and  with  the  Scriptures  also.  Profession 
is  identified  with  baptism,  and  not  with  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per distinctively.  "To  be  baptized  is  to  make  pro- 
fession," was  the  maxim  of  the  Reformed  when  the 
Heidelberg  Catechism  was  made.  One  important  step 
toward  the  practical  working  of  our  old  covenant 
theory  has  been  taken  of  late  by  the  revised  Book  of 
Discipline,  which  requires  "  the  names  of  the  baptized 
children  of  a  parent  seeking  admission  to  another  church 
to  be  included  in  the  certificate  of  dismission."  This 
right  direction  must  lead  to  more  distinct  recognition 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  119 

of  their  ecclesiastical  status  than  before  and  invite  the 
people  everywhere  to  make  this  recognition  more  com- 
plete. The  government  of  the  Church,  being  also 
paternal  in  its  nature,  substituting  may  for  must  in 
view  of  difficulties  and  the  "need  of  patience,"  though 
persistent  and  persevering  to  the  end,  would  greatly 
facilitate  subjection  to  its  own  authority  wherever  it  is 
duly  studied  and  known.  Plausible  objections  to  the 
practice  of  our  theory  are  seen  to  be  figments  of  imag- 
ination as  we  advance  to  real  consistency.  It  used  to 
be  said  that  until  the  baptized  member  enters  into  full 
communion  at  the  Lord's  Supper  he  should  be  regarded 
as  a  minor,  even  to  the  age  of  fourscore.  But  minors, 
according  to  all  analogy,  are  precisely  the  class  of  per- 
sons who  need  discipline  administered  in  the  most  pal- 
pable form  :  "  He  that  spareth  his  rod,  hateth  his  son  : 
but  he  that  loveth  him  chasteneth  him  betimes."  This 
proverb  fairly  expresses  the  nature  of  discipline  as  an 
ordinance  of  benignity  and  affection  when  faithfully 
exercised  in  the  family  or  in  the  church.  It  is  emphat- 
ically a  privilege  to  which  one  is  admitted  in  pursuing 
his  birthright  as  it  is  legitimately  ordei'ed,  and  the 
church  is  chargeable  with  wrong  deprivation  to  with- 
hold it  on  account  of  unwillingness  in  the  subject  to 
receive  it. 

Another  plausible  avoidance  commonly  made  is  to 
allege  a  distinction  of  degrees,  taking  discipline  in  its 
widest  meaning  as  teaching,  training,  admonition,  re- 
proof, rebuke — anything  for  the  merely  baptized  but 
actual  process  in  administration.  Yet  government  of 
any  kind  must  be  more  than  stoppage  at  these  lower 
degrees.  The  ultimate  penalty  and,  of  course,  the 
ulterior  process  in  view  are  required  to  make  the  milder 


120  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

antecedents  eifectual.     It  is  when  the  child  knows  a  rod 
for  delinquency  is  at  the  end  of  the  lesson  that  he  gives 
heed  and  application  to  the  beginning.     It  is  when  the 
citizen   knows  the  coercion  of  power  is  at  the  end  of 
legal  requirement,  with  cost,  that  he  is  prompt  to  ren- 
der a  due  at  the   first  call  of  lawful  demand.     So  it 
must  be   in  the  whole  sphere  of   moral  and  religious 
obligation.     Something  beyond  the   present  intimation 
of  duty  or  dissuasion  from  sin,  more  potent  than  tuition 
and  more  palpable  than  words  without  action,  must  be 
the  stringency  which  will  bind  together  and  enforce  all 
prior   procedures   of    disciplinary   exercise.      And   the 
same  correlatively  with    the  faithfulness  of  those  en- 
trusted with  the  exercise  officially.     As  the  civil  gov- 
ernment of   the   country   is   propelled  to  watchfulness 
and  care  in  common-school  education  and  virtuous  en- 
lightenment of  the  people   by  the  necessity  of  a  direful 
infliction  of  punishment  at  last,  so  the  governors  of  the 
church  will  be  quickened  and  circumspect  in  the  pas- 
toral care  of  baptized  members,  young  and  old,  when 
they  are  made  duly  aware  that  actual  process  on  charges 
must   be  resorted  to  for   purging   scandal  away  from 
the   baptismal   font  as  well   as  from    the   communion- 
table. 

The  great  objection,  however,  instantly  and  uni- 
versally made  is  that  it  is  impracticable,  it  cannot  be 
done.  It  is  hard  enough  to  govern  communicating 
members  with  adequate  discipline,  and  baptized  mem- 
bers would  spurn  the  claim  and  despise  the  process.  It 
may  succeed  for  a  purpose  in  the  spiritual  despotism  of 
popery,  but  never  in  the  franchise  of  radical  freedom  to 
which  we  are  born  in  Protestant  churches.  The  force 
and  impatience  with  which  this  objection  is  made  should 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  121 

be  met  with  the  utmost  calmness  and  charity  in  making 
an  answer.  We  should  learn  what  we  can  from  popery 
itself,  for  wise  policy  may  be  taught  us  by  adversaries. 
The  compactness  and  conservation  of  that  system,  not- 
withstanding its  corruption  and  slaveiy,  are  the  wonder 
of  history.  We  may  venture  tlie  averment  here  that 
such  perpetuation  is  mainly  due  to  the  asserted  govern- 
ment over  baptized  generations,  from  age  to  age,  making 
the  body  homogeneous,  and  therefore  compact  in  propor- 
tion. And  in  this  thing  Romanism  itself  may  appeal  to 
the  Scriptures.  Here  we  find  no  distinction  of  church- 
members  into  two  classes — the  baptized  and  the  full- 
communicants.  We  have  many  other  distinctions  made 
in  Holy  Writ  among  our  members — the  weak  and  the 
strong,  the  poor  and  the  rich,  the  young  and  the  old, 
the  ignorant  and  the  learned,  the  ruled  and  the  rulers, 
the  Gentiles  and  the  Jews — but  never,  in  the  status  of 
membership,  such  as  the  partially  and  the  fully  initiated, 
the  professing  and  the  non-professing  baptized.  This 
were  to  reproduce  in  Christianity  the  old  heathen  aris- 
tocracy of  ethics :  "  Precepts  for  some,  and  counsels  for 
others." 

This  objection  also  implies  an  essential  difference  of 
kind  in  what  is  different  only  in  degree  in  the  exercise 
of  discipline.  We  may  teach,  admonish,  rebuke,  but 
not  suspend  or  excommunicate  the  baptized  member 
from  the  privileges  which  pertain  to  him  at  his  lower 
stage  of  communion.  But  this  must  be  arbitrary  and 
without  reason,  for  all  church  censure  consists  in  the 
authoritative  application  of  divine  words  to  offences. 
The  slightest  reproof  and  the  sternest  excision  are  just 
the  same  in  their  nature.  The  word  of  God  is  an 
excellent  oil  in  reproof  at  the  first,  and  a  sharp  sword 


122  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

in  executing  judgment  at  the  last;  but  through  all  mix- 
ture of  metaphor  it  is  one  and  the  same  kind  of  dis- 
cipline, and  the  only  kind  that  any  church  is  author- 
ized to  use.  If,  then,  it  is  by  the  word  of  God  we  are 
taught  and  warned  and  reproved  and  suspended  and 
excommunicated  in  the  various  forms  of  ministering 
discipline,  why  should  we  halt  in  this  progress  at  the 
first  or  the  second  or  the  third,  and  not  proceed  to  the 
last,  in  dealing  with  baptized  members?  Here,  again, 
there  is  made  by  our  modern  practice  an  arbitrary  dis- 
tinction which  is  nowhere  indicated  in  Holy  Scripture. 
It  has  been  alleged  that  process  of  discipline,  as  a  dis- 
tinct ordinance,  is  intended  for  the  offences  of  full-com- 
municants only,  as  in  the  judgment  of  charity  they  are 
presumably  regenerate,  and  is  therefore  not  to  be  used 
as  a  converting  ordinance,  like  preaching  the  word. 
But  surely  the  word  of  God  is  a  converting  ordinance 
in  any  form  of  its  application  to  the  souls  of  men ;  and 
when  specially  applied  in  the  form  of  adjudication,  its 
pungency  is  peculiar  in  producing  as  an  instrument  the 
two  great  graces  of  true  conversion,  faith  and  repent- 
ance. And  this  product  is  always  sought  for  by  the 
word  alike  among  erring  communicants  and  unregen- 
erate  baptized.  James  v.  19,  20. 

To  extenuate  the  common  delinquency  of  practice  and 
make  it  level  with  our  constitutional  theory  of  the  cove- 
nant, some  reduce  the  doctrine  itself,  and  qualify  the 
membership  of  baptized  persons  with  a  vague  construc- 
tion, as  "  incipient,"  "  auspicious,"  "  promising,"  quasi, 
or  something  undefinable  and  less  than  full  identity. 
But  the  status  of  baptized  members,  being  cardinal  in 
our  system,  should  be  explicit  and  never  befogged  Avith 
words  without  knowledge.     And,  if  it  be  not  untena- 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  123 

ble,  it  must  be  redoubtable.  It  must  be  in  position  to 
answer  the  challenge :  What  are  your  baptized  children, 
when  you  say  they  are  members  of  the  church,  and  yet 
speak  of  your  desire  to  have  them  join  the  church — 
that  they  are  subject  to  its  authority  and  yet  never 
claimed  by  the  exercise  of  authority,  covenanted  by 
birthright  and  by  formal  solemnity  of  initiation  and 
yet  allowed  to  be  so  much  surrendered  to  the  world 
that  the  very  fact  of  their  baptism  is  often  merely  a 
doubtful  tradition?  They  are  either  professed  mem- 
bers of  the  church  or  they  are  not  members  at  all,  for 
profession  is  made  in  baptism,  as  has  been  said  already 
— the  adult  for  himself,  and  the  parent  for  his  child — 
and  a  birthright  neglected  by  the  natural  sponsor  will 
not  be  neglected  in  a  proper  form  of  government  of  the 
church  for  want  of  the  seal,  but  will  be  vindicated  by 
the  censure  of  that  parent  and  confirmed  in  the  subse- 
quent profession  of  his  offspring. 

But  we  must  not  omit  in  this  connection  to  notice  a 
covert  Anabaptism  in  another  objection  often  urged — that 
such  policy  can  be  only  forceful  and  destructive.  Its 
pressure  would  either  constrain  the  unconverted  to  enter 
into  full  communion  unworthily  or  drive  them  away 
from  the  congregation  altogether — would  certainly  make 
the  visible  Church  more  mixed  than  ever  and  make 
the  non-believing  recusant  more  disobedient  than  ever. 
Just  two  things  already  submitted  in  our  premises  are 
unfairly  and  totally  ignored  by  the  objector:  1.  The 
credible  evidence  of  true  conversion  to  be  required  of 
every  candidate  for  full  communion — that  special  pre- 
requisite which  no  form  of  government  could  force  and 
no  want  of  government  could  hinder;  and  2.  The 
solemn  fact  that  everywhere  and  always,  after  the  first 


124  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

sowing  of  tares,  the  mixture  must  be  let  alone  till  the 
final  harvest.  No  spontaneity  of  profession  or  enthusi- 
asm of  novitiate  or  figment  of  imagination  or  scrupu- 
losity of  keys  or  austerity  of  puritan  will  stop  accession 
of  the  impure,  however  much  we  try  to  keep  the  visible 
kingdom  of  heaven  here  "without  spot,  or  wrinkle,  or 
any  such  thing."  Indeed,  government  itself  is  a  predi- 
cate of  imperfection,  and  would  be  without  a  province 
if  a  mingled  condition  of  the  true  and  the  seeming  to- 
gether were  not  subjected  in  every  department.  The 
best  judgment  of  charity  on  ample  observation  is  that 
the  body  of  full  communicants  is  composed  of  many 
converted  and  some  unconverted,  and  the  body  of  bap- 
tized members  at  maturity  is  composed  of  many  uncon- 
verted and  some  converted.  In  gross  they  are  the  very 
same ;  in  proportion  they  are  different.  But  all  good 
government  will  contemplate  the  gross  in  its  procedures. 
Consistency  is  a  jewel  of  slow  formation.  Logically, 
it  is  nimble  enough  to  go  downward  with  headlong 
haste  from  evil  premises  to  worse  conclusion;  but  in 
lateral  development  among  the  analogies  it  hesitates 
long  in  arranging  adequately  the  truth  and  the  right. 
Morally,  it  has  been  working  slowly  through  long  his- 
torical ages  to  make  out  the  just  balancing  of  power  in 
governments  of  men.  Advancing  and  retrograding  all 
the  while,  "  clear  shining  after  the  rain "  is  not  yet. 
Ecclesiastically,  though  projected  before  the  foundation 
of  the  world,  it  is  not  yet  finished,  and  "the  prince 
of  this  world,"  though  "judged"  and  "cast  out"  long 
since,  retains  consistency  of  his  own  sort  as  the  last 
fortress  of  his  kingdom,  from  which  the  inconsistencies 
of  churches,  church-members  and  church  government 
are  continually  charged  with  deplorable  mischief.     We 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  125 

must  work  and  study  to  be  consistent,  and  this  means 
we  must  begin  together  and  stand  together.  "  The 
many "  is  an  apostolic  requirement  for  the  right  exer- 
cise of  government  and  discipline,  and  that  we  be  "  in 
a  readiness  to  revenge  all  disobedience  "  when  the  obedi- 
ence of  good  membership  "  is  fulfilled." 

Thus  far  the  consistency  of  our  scheme  has  been 
attempted  sporadically.  Here  and  there  a  brave  minis- 
ter has  ventured  the  trial  more  in  avowal  than  in  actual 
practice,  because  he  was  alone  among  his  elders,  who 
thought  him  visionary  and  the  old  covenant  an  innova- 
tion when  squared  out  and  pressed  in  totality.  We 
must  be  patient  and  prudent.  It  is  better  to  wait,  as 
the  apostle  Paul  did  and  advised,  for  the  preparation 
of  a  common  sentiment  to  sustain  the  rectitude  of  such 
endeavor.  But  this  waiting  should  not  be  delay  on 
purpose.  Our  civil  government,  which  has  borrowed 
so  much  from  our  covenanting  forefathers,  would  lend 
us  a  perfect  analogy  in  this  extension  of  consistency. 
Every  decade  search  is  made  for  children  born  in  the 
land,  and  more  minute  interrogatories  are  made  about  ages 
and  household  residents,  occupations,  industries,  educa- 
tion, than  any  Presbyterian  Sessions  ever  think  of  pro- 
pounding. Schools  of  rudiment  and  schools  of  reform, 
orphans'  courts  and  orphan  asylums,  married  relations 
and  parental  relations,  administration  of  bequests  and 
devises — in  short,  everything  of  a  moral,  economic, 
social  and  sanitary  nature — is  matter  of  judicious  in- 
quiry at  the  basis  of  well-regulated  government  in  the 
world.  Such  is  Christian  civilization,  however,  and  the 
complete  separation  between  Church  and  State  should 
not  leave  the  Church  apathetic  and  the  State  ungrateful. 
Demitting  to  secular  oversight  almost  everything  sacred 


126  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

but  the  fellowship  of  adults,  the  Church  has  surrendered 
enough  without  allowing  the  Bible  to  be  turned  out  of 
school,  and  prayer  to  be  silenced  in  halls  of  higher 
learning,  and  "emulations"  instead  of  conscience  at 
college  to  become  the  factor  of  scholarship  in  chief,  and 
remain  the  spur  of  unhallowed  ambition  to  the  end  of 
life. 

Surely,  it  is  time  for  the  Church  to  reclaim  her  alien- 
ated province  and  assume  her  authority  over  all  that  are 
born  in  her  pale.  We  should  hasten  to  rival  the  pontifi- 
cate of  Kome  itself  in  writing  to  all  our  own  parochial 
bishops,  "  The  wisdom  of  our  forefathers  and  the  very 
foundations  of  the  State  are  ruined  by  the  destructive 
error  of  those  who  would  have  children  brought  up 
without  religious  education."  Reformed  Christianity 
must  govern  the  education  of  her  children  at  secular 
schools,  and  still  more  emphatically  at  Sunday-schools, 
which  are  now  called  so  often  nurseries  for  the  Church. 
Sponsorial  parents  must  not  be  allowed  to  substitute  for 
themselves  a  sponsorial  machinery  uuwatched  to  relieve 
their  own  hands  of  what  they  have  covenanted  to  do  in 
the  family  ;  and  when  they  try  to  do  their  duty  in  both 
ways,  the  authorities  of  the  Church  must  see  to  it  that 
even  a  partial  delegation  of  this  momentous  interest 
must  not  be  made  in  a  choice  of  teachers  and  superin- 
tendents without  the  sanction  of  an  eldership.  If  both 
teachers  and  taught  alike  in  parish  schools  and  Sunday- 
schools  are  not  made  amenable  to  the  governing  authority 
in  the  Church,  to  recognize,  revere  and  obey  it,  this  power 
will  be  impotent  thereafter  in  the  control  of  all  classes, 
baptized  merely  or  communicating  also.  Let  the  true 
doctrine  of  the  covenant  be  fairly  asserted.  Let  children 
be  made  to  know  and  feel  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  in- 


CONSTlTCfENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  127 

telligeuce  that  they  arc  members  of  the  Church  and  are  to 
meet  the  responsibilities  of  this  relation  through  all  their 
lives,  and  that  as  soon  as  they  come  to  act  for  themselves 
they  come  to  be  subject  to  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  to  civil 
authority.  Let  the  Church  work  up  with  faithfulness 
and  patience  to  every  principle  embodied  in  her  stand- 
ards, and  there  can  be  no  failure  in  her  legitimate  gov- 
ernment. "Many"  will  buttress  the  building  wheu  the 
foundation  is  laid  consistently.  Contumacy  and  defiance 
may  withstand  the  process  when  it  comes  to  citation  and 
trial,  but  such  notoriety  will  not  always  intimidate  "the 
generation  of  the  righteous:"  "Their  seed  shall  be  known 
among  the  Gentiles,  and  their  offspring  among  the  people; 
and  all  that  see  them  shall  acknowledge  them,  that  they 
are  the  seed  which  the  Lord  hath  blessed." 

The  third  main  privilege  of  the  people  is  to  vote 
in  the  election  of  spiritual  officers.  This  elective  fran- 
chise in  the  Church  differs  from  that  in  the  State  funda- 
mentally in  two  particulars :  the  people  do  not  create  the 
offices  which  they  are  privileged  to  fill  by  their  voting, 
either  directly  or  indirectly,  but  accept  these  in  the  con- 
stitution God  has  given  by  his  revelation.  And  the 
persons  also  to  be  chosen  are  sent  to  them  by  his  calling: 
without  anterior  convention  or  primary  nomination  of 
men.  In  most  other  respects  the  suffrages  are  alike. 
The  equitable  right  in  both  rests  on  the  principles  of 
representation  and  production.  The  utmost  freedom 
must  be  guaranteed  to  the  people  in  choosing  persons 
to  represent  them  in  government,  because  the  repre- 
sentative is  to  do  for  them  what  they  wish  him  to  do; 
and  beyond  this,  unlike  the  mere  delegate  or  deputy,  he 
may  serve  them  best  by  going  against  their  wishes  ac- 
cording to  his  own  light  and  the  dictates  of  his  own 


128  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

conscience.  Guiding  and  ruling  are  essentially  included 
in  true  representation.  So  also  in  economy.  The  non- 
producing  officers  who  live  at  the  altar  and  at  any  func- 
tional occupation  of  life  apart  from  the  ordinary  toil  and 
industries  of  the  people  should  receive  appointment  from 
the  hands  of  those  who  support  them  with  stipend  or 
taxes. 

The  type  of  all  this  difference  and  resemblance  we 
have  in  the  Hebrew  commonwealth  as  it  was  organized 
at  first.  The  selection  of  Levi  among  the  tribes  of 
Jacob  was  the  sovereign  designation  of  God  only,  but 
the  people  of  the  whole  nation  besides  were  called  Ijefore 
the  tabernacle  to  accept  and  adopt  this  tribe  as  the  conse- 
crated order  in  place  of  the  first-born  of  every  family 
apart,  signifying  this  by  "  the  whole  assembly"  of  other 
tribes  putting  their  hands  upon  the  heads  of  the  Levites. 
Thus  even  the  typical  priesthood  of  the  ancient  Church 
became  representatives  of  the  people  and  had  cities  pro- 
vided for  homes,  and  other  sustenance  of  great  variety 
apportioned  and  allotted  by  all  Israel.  The  special 
qualification,  therefore,  to  exercise  this  privilege  is  con- 
tribution of  one's  substance  to  support  the  ordinances 
of  divine  appointment  and  the  ministers  of  religion,  who 
seem  to  be  called  of  God  to  live  of  the  gospel  as  long  as 
they  live  in  the  flesh.  In  voting  for  a  pastor  the  Form 
of  Government  (chap.  xv.  sec.  4)  distinctly  expresses  this 
qualification  thus  :  "In  this  election  no  person  shall  be 
entitled  to  vote,  who  refuses  to  submit  to  the  censures  of 
the  Church  rightly  administered ;  or  who  does  not  con- 
tribute his  just  proportion  according  to  his  own  engage- 
ments, or  the  rules  of  that  congregation,  to  all  its  necessary 
expenses." 

The   negative   form  of  expression  by  our  book  has 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  129 

occasioned  embarrassment  and  some  variety  of  opinion 
among  the  churches.  The  fair  interpretation  must 
assume  that  all  baptized  persons,  being  members  of 
the  church,  formally  initiated,  are  admitted  to  the  en- 
joyment of  all  privileges  for  which  they  manifest  the 
proper  prerequisite  respectively.  It  is  also  to  be  assumed 
that  they  are  consistently  subjected  to  the  government 
and  discipline  of  the  church.  To  exercise  the  privilege 
of  voting,  therefore,  it  must  be  clear  that  they  are  duly 
submissive  to  discipline  and  duly  prompt  to  discharge 
their  obligation  to  support  the  church  by  the  contribu- 
tion of  their  means.  Delinquency  in  either  of  these  par- 
ticulars will  debar  the  exercise  of  suifrage.  The  dis- 
junctive "  or,"  therefore,  in  the  text  does  not  imply  two 
different  classes  of  voters — those  who  are  loyal  in  their 
obedience  and  those  who  pay  well,  even  though  not 
members  of  the  church  at  all.  This  latitude,  which 
is  given  in  charters  of  civil  corporation  too  often,  is  for- 
bidden by  the  first  principles  of  ecclesiastical  organiza- 
tion, which  make  voting  the  peculiar  privilege  of  church- 
members.  This  privilege  is  a  gift  from  the  Head  of  the 
Church,  and  to  take  the  gift  because  one  pays  money  to 
the  church  is  to  buy  it  simoniacally.  The  person  who 
votes  legitimately  must  have  been  "  freeborn  "  if  not  en- 
franchised by  a  public  profession — "  born  within  the  pale 
of  the  visible  Church  "  at  the  very  least  of  qualification. 
All  citizens  born  in  the  land  have  at  maturity  of  age  a 
right  to  vote  for  a  governor  if  they  have  paid  their  tax 
for  the  poll,  but  the  foreigner  who  does  pay  tax  is  not 
on  that  account  merely  admitted  to  the  polls.  The  re- 
moval of  one  disqualification  where  either  of  two  nega- 
tions would  preclude  a  voter  does  not  make  an  affirma- 
tive of  the  other  negation,  and  much  less  does  it  allow 

9 


130  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

another  class  to  be  enfranchised  by  merely  paying  money 
without  regard  to  the  prime  qualification  of  being  "  free- 
born  "  in  the  sense  of  Church-nativity. 

Whilst  our  polity  has  been  strained  exceedingly  in 
giving  latitude  of  suffrage  to  the  clioice  of  a  pastor  be- 
cause he  sustains  an  im})ortant  relation  to  all  that  hear 
the  gospel  at  his  lips,  converted  and  unconverted,  in  the 
church  and  out  of  it,  attending  the  congregation  before 
him,  it  has  been  decided  by  the  General  Assembly  that 
only  full  communicants  should  vote  for  ruling  elders,  on 
the  presumption  that  such  members  are  especially  amen- 
able to  the  Session,  and  therefore  peculiarly  interested  in 
the  choice  of  rulers.  But,  as  we  have  seen  already,  this 
restriction  is  unreasonable  in  view  of  the  unquestionable 
meaning  of  our  constitution,  which  expressly  subjects  all 
members  baptized  to  the  government  and  discipline  of 
every  particular  church.  The  Assembly,  therefore,  wisely 
decided  the  voting  of  merely  baptized  members,  as  well 
as  that  of  communicants,  will  not  invalidate  the  election 
of  elders.  And  the  distinctive  principles  of  ecclesiastical 
voting  have  been  faithfully  developed  in  giving  to  all 
members  the  privilege,  without  distinction  of  sex  or  age, 
who  are  mature  enough  to  come  under  the  immediate 
government  of  the  Session  and  are  not  disqualified  by 
insubordination  or  the  refusal  of  proper  dues. 

The  right  of  suffrage  rises  to  its  highest  dignity  and 
power  when  it  responds  to  the  great  commission  cast 
upon  the  bosom  of  the  Church  by  her  ascending  Saviour. 
Matt,  xxviii.  18-20.  Going  and  sending  are  identified 
iu  the  force  of  this  commission,  which  evidently  made 
the  Church  a  missionary  society  from  the  beginning. 
Her  votes  and  treasures,  her  testimony  and  work,  her 
power  and  glory,  are  all  involved  in  the  scope  of  this 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  131 

behest.  And  the  radical  question  confronts  us  here,  and 
ought  to  be  settled  here  in  discussing  the  suffragan  prov- 
ince which  belongs  to  all  church-members :  Where  was 
the  commission  lodged,  and  with  whom  deposited  for  all 
generations — with  the  eleven  apostles  as  officers  in  their 
own  right  only,  or  as  representatives  of  "  the  peculiar 
people"  and  the  "royal  priesthood"  to  be  gathered  and 
constituted  by  their  instrumentality  ?  If  the  former,  the 
eleven  personally,  without  reference  to  a  constituency 
already  existing  and  to  be  increased  indefinitely  by  the 
gospel  preached  to  all  nations,  we  are  held  to  a  stringent 
necessity  of  making  out  a  regular  and  unbroken  trans- 
mission to  individual  officers  in  succession  to  keep  the 
commission  from  being  lost,  and  on  this  precarious  suc- 
cession the  whole  Church  must  be  built  till  the  end  of 
time.  History,  both  inspired  and  uninspired,  has  utterly 
failed  to  trace  with  certainty  any  such  succession,  and 
presumptive  imagination  argues  it  with  lone  assevem- 
tion  which  is  unequalled  in  effrontery.  Yet  this  view 
has  been  taken  partially  by  some  who  believe  in  a  rela- 
tive and  not  an  absolute  necessity  of  succession,  holding, 
also,  that  it  can  be  traced,  as  Irenseus  taught,  in  the 
presbyters,  who  have  always  had  a  line  unbroken  some- 
where. But  the  transmission  which  depends  at  all  on  a 
supplement  of  history  is  always  embarrassed  with  diffi- 
culty and  dispute.  The  true  channel  of  succession  is 
faithfulness  and  ability — faithfulness  to  the  record  and 
ability  in  teaching  it :  "  The  things  thou  hast  heard  of 
me  among  many  witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to 
faithful  men,  who  shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also." 
2  Tim.  ii.  2. 

We  return,  therefore,  to  the  alternative  persuasion — 
that  the  last  commission  from  our  Lord  was  given  to 


132  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  Church  as  a  body  of  believers,  to  be  their  mission 
by  their  own  elected  representatives  till  the  end  of  time. 
Such  were  the  original  twelve  chosen  by  our  Lord  him- 
self at  the  crisis  of  transition  from  the  Old  Testament  to 
the  New.  Quickly  as  the  juncture  was  passed  an  election 
was  held  to  fill  the  vacancy  made  by  the  apostasy  of 
Judas.  Peter,  as  some  believe,  was  too  fast  in  making 
the  proposal  which  seems  to  have  anticipated  the  calling 
of  Paul,  but  his  action  significantly  meant  a  conscious- 
ness that  the  last  commission  reposed  on  the  body  of  the 
believing  people.  Matthias  was  elected  by  the  assembly 
of  one  hundred  and  twenty  disciples  to  the  office  of 
apostle ;  and  when  they  went  forth  to  ordain  elders  in 
every  city  and  every  church,  it  was  in  the  way  of  voting 
for  these  officers.  Acts  xiv.  23.  The  very  M'ord  itself 
translated  "  ordained  "  or  "  appointed  "  means  literally 
stretching  out  the  hand — a  gesture  of  the  people  in  the 
act  of  voting.  Derivative  uses  of  the  word  here  men- 
tioned as  the  act  of  the  apostles  do  not  preclude  the 
suggestion  that,  as  in  the  election  of  deacons  the  popular 
vote  preceded  the  formal  ordination,  so  it  was  here,  the 
apostles  ordaining  those  who  were  previously  voted  for 
by  the  people.  The  great  commission  devolved  upon 
the  nascent  Church  by  her  exalted  Head  our  Lord  is 
like  the  constitution  of  a  State  in  our  parlance,  resting 
on  the  bosom  of  the  people  as  an  organic  law,  creating 
offices,  defining  duties  and  prerogatives,  excluding  the 
people  from  an  indiscriminate  exercise  of  functions,  and 
yet  remaining  their  own  instrument  of  order  in  such  a 
sense  that  the  authority  it  confers  may  be  revoked  for 
malversation  by  judicatories  which  the  same  instrument 
creates  alike  for  the  protection  and  the  restraint  of 
the  people. 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  133 

(1)  This  popular  aspect  of  government,  from  the 
beginning  of  the  Christian  Church,  will  be  justified 
by  the  most  minute  examination  of  records  made  at  the 
supreme  culmination  of  her  system  in  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus.  "Five  hundred  brethren  at  once"  were  present 
at  the  bestowmeut  of  the  commission  in  the  mountain 
of  Galilee  where  he  had  arrauo-ed  with  the  "eleven"  to 
meet  his  disciples.  1  Cor.  xv.  6.  An  exact  collation  of 
the  different  appearances  of  our  Lord  between  the  resur- 
rection and  the  ascension  will  shut  us  up  to  this  conclu- 
sion. And  if,  as  some  have  thought,  this  large  concourse 
and  last  command  were  had  at  Jerusalem,  it  is  the  same 
significance.  Indeed,  "the  eleven"  are  promiscuously 
noticed  throughout  this  interval  as  included  with  "dis- 
ciples," "  brethren,"  etc. :  "  Unto  the  eleven  and  all  the 
rest ;"  "  The  eleven  gathered  together,  and  them  that 
were  with  them."  These  are  familiar  expressions  to 
indicate  the  following  of  a  risen  Redeemer  as  indefi- 
nitely more  than  eleven  until  the  five  hundred  at  once 
received  the  final  behest.  These  first-called  and  original 
witnesses  of  our  Lord  charged  in  the  presence  of  other 
disciples,  as  legates  of  the  ascending  Master,  "  Go  "  as 
representatives  of  the  people,  who  in  all  their  genera- 
tions afterward  would,  as  no  extraordinary  messengers 
of  one  generation  could,  enjoy  the  faithfulness  of  that 
promise :  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  world." 

(2)  This  view  accords  with  the  facts  of  Pentecostal  in- 
auguration. Power  from  on  high  was  waited  for  by  the 
body  of  disciples,  and  not  by  the  apostles  alone.  They 
were  all  with  one  accord  in  one  place  when  the  Holy 
Ghost  came  down  to  distribute  gifts  for  the  effectual 
working  out  of  the  great  commission :  "  All  began  to 


134  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

speak  with  other  tongues,  as  the  Spirit  gave  them  utter- 
ance." All  that  had  "seen  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord" 
began  to  testify  what  they  had  seen,  and  to  teach  and 
preach  as  they  were  severally  empowered  to  do  in  pur- 
suance of  that  last  charge.  There  was  no  formal  invest- 
ment of  others  with  office  to  indicate  an  exclusive  com- 
mission to  "  the  eleven."  The  commission  took  imme- 
diate effect  on  every  man  who  received  the  gift  from 
God  without  "the  laying  on  of  hands"  in  mediate 
ordination.  Thus  Ananias  went  forth  to  preach  and  to 
baptize.  Thus  men  of  Cyprus  and  Cyrene  proceeded 
to  Antioch  with  the  gospel.  Thus  Apollos,  without  the 
hands  of  any  apostle,  evangelist  or  presbyter,  preached 
at  Alexandria,  Ephesus  and  Corinth.  As  it  had  been 
f(n'  ages  before  that  the  people  of  every  synagogue 
listened  to  the  man  who  came  along  with  the  gift  and 
demonstration  of  a  prophet,  so  now  it  would  be  that 
every  congregation  would  listen  to  the  teaching  of  any 
man  who  came  along  with  the  power  of  a  Pentecostal 
endowment.  The  mantle  of  commission  fell  and  rested 
on  all  that  were  "endued  with  power  from  on  high." 
The  apostles  and  the  people  were  alike  on  that  high 
level  of  participation. 

(3)  The  relation  of  ordinary  ministers  to  the  people 
of  the  Church  at  large  purports  the  same  level  in  every 
age.  They  belong  to  the  whole  Church  as  servants, 
apostle  and  presbyter  alike:  "Ourselves  your  servants 
for  Jesus'  sake;"  "All  things  are  yours,  whether  Paul, 
or  Apollos,  or  Cephas,  all  are  yours."  But  charters  of 
title  do  not  belong — exclusively,  at  least — to  servants  : 
heritage  especially  in  all  the  laws  of  descent  is  the  por- 
tion of  children  rather  than  of  servants.  It  is  the  prin- 
cipal, and  not  the  agent  or  the  factor,  who  possesses  abso- 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  135 

lute  title  to  the  premises  on  Avhich  the  servant  is  found. 
AH  the  apostles  who  have  written  to  us  at  all  press 
the  analogy  too  strongly  to  have  had  the  sentiment  of 
superiority  in  the  franchise  of  preaching. 

(4)  This  view  of  the  commission,  that  it  rests  with 
the  constituency  more  than  with  the  ministers  or  the 
rulers  of  tlie  church  who  exercise  it,  was  held  in  the  first 
two  centuries  after  the  apostles.  "  All  Christians/'  said 
Tertullian,  "are  made  priests  of  Christ;  so  that  when 
these  are  gathered  together  they  make  a  church,  though 
they  be  all  laymen.  And  where  no  clergymen  are  pre- 
sent laymen  may  baptize  and  celebrate  the  eucharist, 
the  distinction  between  clergy  and  laity  being  only  by 
the  Church."  Loose  and  radical  as  such  expressions 
may  appear,  and  peculiar  to  that  old  enthusiast,  there 
is  unquestionably  indicated  the  fact  that  in  the  second 
century  tlie  people  were  competent  to  put  forth  preach- 
ers for  themselves  wlien  it  was  considered  necessary  in 
privation  or  defection. 

(5)  The  same  opinion  was  held  by  leaders  of  the 
great  Eeformation.  "  It  hath  been  said,"  says  Luther, 
"  that  the  pope,  the  bishops,  the  priests  and  those  who 
dwell  in  convents  form  the  spiritual  state,  and  that  the 
princes,  nobles,  citizens  and  peasants  form  the  secular 
state,  or  laity.  This  is  a  fine  story  indeed,  but  let  no 
one  be  misled  by  it.  All  Christians  belong  to  the  spir- 
itual state,  and  there  is  no  other  difference  among  them 
than  that  of  the  functions  they  discharge.  If  any  pious 
laymen  were  banished  to  a  desert,  and,  having  no  regu- 
larly-constituted priest  among  them,  were  to  agree  to 
choose  to  that  office  one  of  their  own  number,  married 
or  unmarried,  this  man  would  be  as  truly  a  priest  as  if 
he  liad  been  consecrated  by  all  the  bishops  in  the  world. 


136  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Cyprian  was  chosen  very  much  in  this  way.  Hence 
it  follows  that  laity  and  priests,  princes  and  bishops, 
have  in  reality  nothing  to  distinguish  them  but  their 
functions.  They  all  belong  to  the  same  state,  but  all 
have  not  the  same  work  to  perform." 

(6)  Reformation  of  the  Church  is  made  without  em- 
barrassment on  this  platform  of  ultimate  right  and 
power  in  the  people  who  compose  it.  Reserved  to  the 
body  of  the  faithful,  it  avails  much  to  prevent  corrup- 
tion and  restore  the  integrity  of  truth  and  mannei*s 
when  short  of  total  apostasy.  No  sacrament  of  orders 
nor  mystic  impartation  from  man  to  man  of  something 
which  one  party  has  and  another  has  not,  no  drivelling 
touch  of  robed  officials  on  the  forehead  or  the  palm, 
was  needed  in  transmitting  to  future  ages  that  august 
commission  which  a  risen  Redeemer  laid  on  the  bosom 
of  hundreds  at  Jerusalem  or  on  the  mountain  of  Gali- 
lee, or  both,  it  may  have  been,  with  the  emphasis  of  his 
own  sublime  repetition.  Such  is  the  vital  importance 
of  suffrage  in  the  people  and  its  peculiar  significance  at 
the  foundations  of  Christianity. 

The  fourth  immunity  of  church -members,  or  spe- 
cial privilege  to  which  they  are  formally  admitted  in 
baptism,  is  the  exercise  of  gifts  according  to  the 
respective  endowment  by  the  Head  of  the  Church : 
"  Unto  every  one  of  us  is  grace  given,  according  to 
the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ."  Ascension-gifts 
are  still  continued  in  the  body  of  Christ,  both  visible 
and  invisible,  and  these  are  not  confined  to  those  who 
are  in  office  even  by  the  calling  of  God  and  the  vote  of 
the  people ;  an  endless  variety  may  be  found  among  the 
unofficial  members  themselves.  And  these  are  not  to 
be  repressed  for  want  of  office,  but  rather  cherished  and 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  137 

stimulated  by  office-bearers — conditioned  on  "decency 
and  order"  at  all  times  and  in  every  place.  The  spe- 
cial prerequisite  here  is  subordination  to  constituted 
authority.  Exercised  in  that  private  and  social  sphere 
which,  instead  of  infringing  upon  the  public  functions 
of  ministers  and  elders,  snpplies  largely  the  lack  of  their 
service,  and  so  upholds  their  hands  and  confirms  their 
influence,  these  varied  gifts  of  the  people  are  of  indis- 
pensable usefulness  to  the  best  welfare  of  the  Church. 

Indeed,  they  have  often  cradled  the  Church,  both  in 
Europe  and  in  America.  A  mother  in  Virginia,  at  the 
side  of  such  a  cradle,  gave  to  the  ministry  Samuel  Da- 
vies,  whose  gifts  and  eloquence  won  so  much  renown 
in  both  hemispheres  before  he  was  thirty-six  years  old, 
when  he  died.  The  General  Assembly  in  Scotland, 
A.  D.  1641,  passed  the  following  minute  :  "Our  Assem- 
bly also  comniendeth  godly  conference  at  all  occasional 
meetings ;  or  as  God's  providence  may  dispose,  as  the 
word  of  God  commandeth ;  provided  none  invade  the 
pastor's  office,  to  preach  the  word,  who  is  not  called 
thereunto,  by  God  and  his  Church."  This  enactment, 
centuries  old,  describes  the  happy  mean  which  Presby- 
terianism  has  held  in  all  countries  between  the  exclusive 
arrogance  of  a  caste  in  prelacy  and  the  radical  confusion 
of  a  mere  society  in  independency.  We  have  never  ex- 
perienced much  practical  difficulty  on  the  subject  of  lay- 
preaching,  while  both  these  systems  have  found  its  just 
limits  exceedingly  hard  to  define.  The  following  im- 
munities may  not  be  denied  to  tlie  people  : 

1st.  To  search  the  Scriptures  for  themselves,  Avitli  full 
warrant  to  believe  that  a  prayerful  and  humble  exercise 
of  private  judgment  may  attain  to  a  saving  knowledge 
of  doctrine  and  duty  by  this  means  alone.     The  use  of 


138  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  Scriptures,  with  the  right  of  private  judgment,  is 
really  a  grant  made  to  all  men  who  can  read  or  hear 
them  read  beyond  the  boundaries  of  church-membership. 
The  Bible  is  for  the  slobe  we  inhabit,  and  its  instinct  of 
life  eternal  cannot  be  "  bound  "  nor  kept  from  floating 
with  its  leaves  for  "  the  healing  of  the  nations  "  wher- 
ever the  winds  of  heaven  may  wafl  the  commerce  of  the 
world.     But,  as  it  is  to  the  visible  Church  the  oracles  of 
God  have  been  committed  in  trust  for  preservation  and 
promulgation,  they  are  given  with  covenant  promise  and 
blessing  to  her  baptized  generations,  without  distinction 
of  office,  age  or  sex,  to  read  and  understand  for  them- 
selves individually.     So  sensitive  is  the  freedom  of  this 
right  in  our  system  that  the  General  Assembly  has  re- 
fused more  than  once  the  proposition  to  have  an  author- 
ized commentary  on  the  Holy  Scriptures,  though  teeming 
with  iuterpreters  capable  and  faithful  enough  for  the  task. 
The  right  of  every  member  to  read  and  understand  for 
himself  is  founded — (1)  On  the  divine  command.  Deut. 
vi.  6,  7 ;  Ps.  i.  2 ;  John  v.  39 ;  Col.  iii.  16 ;  2  Pet.  i.  19, 
and  other  places  too  numerous  to  be  cited.     (2)  Also  on 
the  name  and    nature  of  the  word    as  a  testament,  it 
being  a  manifest  injustice  that  any  heir  should  not  be 
allowed  to  read  for  himself  the  will  of  his  own  Father 
and  Elder  Brother.     (3)  On  the  nature  of  the  Church 
as  a  free  community,  it  being  absurd  that  any  member 
of  such  community  should  be  hindered  from  reading  for 
himself  its  charter  and  constitution.     (4)  On  the  usage 
of  the  Church    under  all    dispensations,  including,  of 
course,  the  concessions  of  Catholic  Fathers  themselves, 
Clement,  Origen,  Chrysostom,  Basil,  Cyprian,  Augus- 
tine and  Jerome — all,  without  exception,  that  shone  with 
lustre   in  churchly  consecration   and  had  any  learning 


OONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  139 

and  piety  and  candor  in  the  earlier  ages  of  post-apostolic 
Christianity. 

There  has  never  been  objection  to  this  popular  use  of 
Holy  Scripture  which  the  book  itself  does  not  answer 
with  luminous  and  emphatic  reply.  Is  it  said  the  people 
are  not  capable  of  understanding  it?  The  answer  is,  "It 
opens  the  eyes  of  the  blind"  and  "  makes  wise  the  simple." 
Is  it  said  that  it  is  not  sufficient  to  lead  men  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  all  truth  and  duty,  in  every  age?  It  answers, 
"  The  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect,"  "  able  to  make  men 
wise  unto  salvation,"  "  profitable  for  doctrine,  for  re- 
proof, for  correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness ; 
that  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect,  thoroughly  fur- 
nished to  all  good  works."  Is  it  said  that  an  endless 
diversity  and  confusion  must  come  if  every  man  be 
authorized  to  interpret  for  himself?  The  Bible  declares 
and  makes  it  clear :  ''  There  is  one  Lord,  one  faith,  one 
baptism."  And  all  observation  confirms  it  that  among 
all  evangelical  men  there  is  unity  of  faith  in  what  saves 
and  sanctifies  the  soul. 

2d.  Unofficial  members  have  the  privilege  of  trying 
their  teachers  and  rulers  by  the  word  of  God  in  their 
hands.  Hence  the  many  injunctions  to  "take  heed  how 
ye  hear,"  to  "  try  the  spirits "  and  "  beware  of  false 
prophets :"  "  I  speak  as  to  wise  men,  judge  ye  what  I 
say."  Hence,  also,  the  commendation  of  the  Bereaus 
for  searching  among  themselves  to  know  the  truth  of 
what  was  preached  to  them  even  in  apostolic  times  of 
preaching.  This  right,  like  the  first,  is  private :  each 
man  judges  for  himself  and  not  for  others,  nor  for  the 
Church  at  large,  to  sow  dissension  or  disturb  the  peace. 
Our  Saviour  bade  his  followers  hear  the  Pharisees  because 
they  sat  in  Moses'  seat,  and  yet  how  pointedly  did  he 


140  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

bid  them  beware  of  the  doctrine  of  the  Pharisees !  So 
this  right  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  proper  authority 
of  teachers,  and  dissenting  members  will  be  constrained 
to  exercise  charity  and  forbearance  in  the  freest  enjoy- 
ment of  private  opinions. 

3d.  A  third  exercise  of  gift  by  all  members  of  the 
Church  is  mutual  exhortation,  conference,  social  inter- 
change of  speaking,  on  doctrine,  duty  and  experience  in 
the  life  of  believers.  In  degenerate  times  of  the  Old- 
Testament  ecclesia  this  kind  of  exercise  among  the  faith- 
ful was  commended  with  signal  approbation  of  the  Most 
High  :  "  Then  they  that  feared  the  Lord  spake  often  one 
to  another ;  and  the  Lord  hearkened,  and  heard  it,  and 
a  book  of  remembrance  was  written  before  him,  for  them 
that  feared  the  Lord,  and  that  thought  upon  his  name." 
Mai.  iii.  7.  This  mutual  interchange  of  speech  is  en- 
joined upon  New-Testament  believers  in  multiplied 
forms  of  urgency,  as  if  the  universal  "priesthood"  now 
were  universally  commissioned  to  teach  and  preach. 
They  are  to  exhort  one  another  daily,  to  instruct  the 
ignorant,  to  warn  the  unruly,  to  restore  the  fallen,  to 
reconcile  the  variant,  to  comfort  the  feeble-minded  and 
support  the  weak, — in  short,  like  Eldad  and  Medad  of 
old,  to  prophesy  in  the  camp,  and  not  the  tabernacle,  so 
usefully  as  to  make  faithful  ministers  exclaim,  like  Moses, 
"  Would  God  that  all  the  Lord's  people  were  prophets, 
and  that  the  Lord  would  put  his  Spirit  upon  them  !" 
Yet,  as  "  Joshua  the  son  of  Nun "  would  have  had 
them  forbidden,  many  wise  and  good  men  of  this  day 
are  given  to  similar  envy  and  repression.  It  is  necessary, 
therefore,  to  ascertain  the  limits  over  which  the  exercised 
people  would  "  invade  the  pastor's  office." 

1.  They  are  not  to  affect  the  exercise  of  a  gift  which 


CONSTITUENCY  OF  THE  CHURCH.  141 

they  do  not  possess,  and  in  attempting  all  duties  of  the 
heavenly  calling,  with  the  best  of  their  abilities,  they  are 
not  to  wait  on  anything  with  constant  eifort  for  which, 
after  fair  experiment,  they  are  manifestly  unqualified. 

2.  They  are  not  to  be  sole  judges  of  the  gifts  they 
possess.  These  must  be  recognized  by  the  pastor,  elders 
or  people  as  good  for  edification,  and  failures  should  be 
so  judged  by  others,  when  they  indicate  only  diffidence 
or  inexperience,  as  to  encourage  them  to  renewed  efforts 
in  the  direction  which  they  desire  to  pursue.  This  recog- 
nition by  others  may  be  tentative  only,  as  in  the  training 
of  persons  for  office  in  the  Church.  In  the  earlier  ages 
of  Christianity  the  bishop,  or  pastor  of  a  particular 
church,  would  often  call  forth  to  preach  a  layman  whom 
he  deemed  qualified.  When  Origen,  of  the  third  cen- 
tury, was  approved  in  preaching  to  the  people  before 
his  investment  with  orders  by  Alexander,  bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  Demetrius,  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  was 
disaffected  toward  Origen,  protested  against  it  as  irreg- 
ular and  unlawful ;  but  Alexander,  in  his  turn,  cited  a 
large  number  of  facts  in  which  laymen  had  been  called 
to  preach  for  an  occasion  by  officers  of  the  church  when 
they  were  considered  fit  and  capable  enough,  or  when 
their  capability  was  to  be  tested,  or  eveu  when  the 
regular  minister  was  sick  and  the  people  would  other- 
wise be  destitute  or  disappointed  (Bingham's  Antiquities, 
book  xiv.  ch.  4).  The  teachers  of  that  famous  catechetical 
school  at  Alexandria — the  first  theological  seminary  in 
Christendom — were  laymen,  according  to  the  statement 
of  Jerome,  through  a  long  succession  from  Origeu,  and 
men  were  made  doctors  of  divinity  before  they  were 
licensed  to  preach.  In  the  subsequent  centuries  the 
authorities  of  the  Church  had  much  more  trouble  with 


142  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  monks  about  preaching  without  license  than  they 
have  in  this  generation  with  theological  students.  The 
whole  force  of  a  rising  hierarchy  was  required  to  keep 
the  monks  in  silence,  especially  as  they  soon  became 
wiser  than  their  teachers,  and  after  ages  of  conflict, 
near  the  dawn  of  the  great  Reformation,  the  monks 
known  as  "  preaching  friars "  triumphed,  and  became 
popularly  called  the  "  regular  clergy,"  while  their 
adversaries  in  the  contest  were  left  to  be  called  the 
"secular  clergy."  But  the  sentiment  of  the  ancient 
Church  against  the  preaching  of  religious  drones  re- 
vives in  all  the  churches  of  the  Reformation,  leading 
us  to  notice  a  third  limitation  in  the  exercise  of  gifts, 
grounded  on  revelation  and  reason  both. 

3.  No  unofficial  member  of  the  church  is  authorized 
to  forsake  his  lawful  calling  in  the  world  by  which  he 
provides  things  needful  to  the  present  life  and  supports 
his  family,  if  he  has  any,  for  the  sake  of  living  by  the 
exercise  of  his  gifts  in  the  Church,  without  being  for- 
mally or  informally  appointed  by  officers  representing 
the  people  in  assemblies  of  adult  membership.  The 
progress  of  the  Church  and  the  many  sides  of  her  work 
may  often  require  the  common  sense  and  business  adap- 
tations of  unofficial  men  to  serve  her  in  important  in- 
terests, but  let  them  be  called  by  church  authority, 
without  obtrusive  management  in  seeking  place. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

ALTHOUGH  the  Church  of  Christ,  consisting  of 
members  more  than  orders  and  inckidiug^  officers 
of  all  sorts  in  the  common  right  of  suffi-age  with  the 
membership,  may  choose  their  own  teachers  and  rulers, 
this  freedom  of  choice  can  rano;e  only  within  the  nom- 
inations  made  by  our  Lord  himself  in  the  communica- 
tion of  his  grace  to  candidates,  enduing  them  with 
capacity  and  the  requisite  "  knowledge  and  piety."  His 
calling  is  described  in  his  word  as  both  gift  and  ar- 
rangement. He  "  gave  "  and  "  hath  set "  "  some  in  the 
Church,"  importing  not  only  bestowal  as  a  favor,  but 
limitation  of  function  to  its  proper  sphere  according  to 
his  own  constitution.  (See  Eph.  iv.  11 ;  1  Cor.  xii.  28.) 
The  people  govern  themselves  by  representation,  but 
this  representation  must  be  governed  by  the  word  of 
God.  Officers  are  representatives  of  God  to  men  and 
of  men  to  God — not  as  mediators  or  priests  at  all,  but 
as  ministers  in  dispensing  the  provisions  of  a  covenant 
between  God  and  man  and  interceding  for  man  as  they 
are  enabled  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  They  come  from  the 
people,  they  serve  the  people,  are  like  them  in  submis- 
sion, faith,  hope,  infirmity  and  fear,  and  yet  there  is  no 
line  of  demarcation  in  the  body  of  Christ  so  distinct 
as  that  between  officers  and  members  of  the  Christian 
Church.      They  are  set  apart  with  distinctive  names, 

143 


144  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

have  distinctive  duties  to  ijerform,  have  special  rewards 
of  faithfulness  to  look  for,  and  have  peculiar  claims  on 
the  esteem,  obedience  and  support  of  the  people.  All 
attempts  of  spiritual  despotism  to  rub  out  the  distinc- 
tion by  making  the  people  nothing  but  ignorant  slaves, 
and,  on  tlie  other  hand,  of  mystic  enthusiasm  to  dis- 
pense with  all  ordained  authority  as  a  burden  and 
hindrance,  have  either  declined  to  utter  apostasy  or 
vanished  away  from  the  face  of  Christendom. 

The  Reformed  classification  of  New-Testament  offi- 
cers into  the  two,  extraordinary  and  ordinary,  may  be 
made  more  exact  and  complete  in  three,  named  the 
ministry  of  witnesses,  the  ministry  of  gifts  and  the 
ministry  of  orders.  The  first  were  transient;  the  second, 
partly  transient  in  the  discontinuance  of  preternatural 
gifts;  and  the  third,  permanent.  T\\q first  were  person- 
ally called  to  be  companions  of  Christ  in  the  flesh,  to 
be  taught  by  his  own  life  and  qualified  by  the  testimony 
of  their  own  senses  to  be  his  witnesses  to  all  men  of 
what  they  had  seen  and  heard  of  him.  The  second 
were  endowed  by  the  Holy  Ghost  with  extraordinary 
gifts  in  the  Pentecostal  effusion,  and  commissioned 
thereby,  with  little  or  no  anterior  tuition,  to  go  forth 
on  the  same  errand  as  the  apostles — teaching,  testifying, 
wonder-working,  without  formal  ordination  of  man,  the 
sovereignty  of  the  Master  not  being  committed  in  his 
word  either  to  give  or  not  to  give  such  ministers  again. 
The  third  were  the  elders  of  the  Old-Testament  ecclesia, 
continued  as  they  were  in  organization  and  worship 
by  the  Spirit  of  the  New-Testament  dispensation,  and 
wherever  the  synagogues  continued  without  conversion 
churches  were  gathered  anew  by  the  ministries  of  recon- 
ciliation and  modelled  instantly  after  the  fashion  of  the 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  145 

old  economy.  (See,  again,  Acts  ii.  47 ;  also  Tit.  i.  5.) 
We  have  the  origin  of  the  reconstruction  of  every  office 
but  that  of  elder  mentioned  in  New-Testament  history, 
and  yet  no  office  is  more  familiarly  and  constantly 
noticed  in  the  history.  Even  the  apostles  Peter  and 
John  take  special  care  to  inform  us  they  are  elders  also 
when  uttering  the  dictates  of  apostleship.  These  three 
classes  of  ministers  were  simultaneously  in  the  field, 
therefore,  each  one  including  to  a  certain  extent  the 
other  two,  and  all  harmoniously  sustaining  and  confirm- 
ing each  other  at  the  foundations  of  Christianity  in  the 
world. 

1.  The  Apostles,  or  Ministry  of  Witness. 

The  manifestation  of  the  Spirit,  glorious  at  all  times, 
in.  working  with  the  Church  on  earth,  signalized  the 
Pentecostal  epoch  in  three  particulars:  a  profusion  of 
gifts,  and  consequent  display  of  functions,  in  greater 
variety  than  was  ever  vouchsafed  before  or  since  ;  an 
elevation  of  the  whole  Church  to  the  same  deg-ree  of 
consecration  by  his  power — old  men  and  young  men, 
sons  and  daughters,  servants  and  handmaids — according 
to  the  prophecy  of  Joel  (ii.) ;  and  an  extraordinary  mis- 
sion of  witnesses,  who  were  waiting  for  ])ower  from  on 
high  to  spread  the  tidings  of  a  finished  redemption, 
deponing  their  special  observation  of  the  facts  on  which 
it  is  based  and  organizing  the  results  of  their  persuasion 
with  formal  establishment  of  churches.  These  mis- 
sionaries our  Lord  himself  had  named  apostles  (Luke 
vi.  13)  when  he  was  particular  in  choosing  twelve  in 
number. 

The  term  "apostle,"  like  other  names  for  New-Testa- 
ment officers  of  Greek  derivation  is  brought  from  com- 

10 


146  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

mon  to  special  use  in  a  threefold  transmutation  of  the 
word — the  adjective  sense,  the  appellative  and  the  proper 
technical  signification.  We  have  this  word  in  its  simple 
adjective  meaning  in  John  xiii.  16  and  Phil.  ii.  25 — 
"one  sent"  in  the  former,  "messenger"  in  the  latter. 
We  have  the  intermediate  shade  of  appellative  applica- 
tion in  Acts  xiv.  4,  14,  where  Barnabas  and  Paul,  sent 
together  on  a  mission  by  the  church  at  Antioch,  and  by 
the  Holy  Ghost,  are  called  "apostles"  in  the  course  of 
their  errand.  We  have  the  same  application  to  official 
brethren  in  general  translated  properly  "messenger"  in 
2  Cor.  viii.  23,  and  in  Heb.  iii.  1  its  application  is  made 
to  Christ  himself — "the  Apostle  and  High  Priest  of 
our  profession."  The  prevailing  use  of  the  word  in 
Scripture  is  the  third  in  its  almost  uniform  application 
to  the  twelve,  and  so  distinct  as  to  confound  the  finesse 
of  modern  logic,  which  for  a  purpose  to  be  noticed  here- 
after mixes  up  all  three  senses  in  order  to  give  a  multi- 
tude of  successors  this  great  name  of  a  small,  unique, 
transcendent  order  who  finished  tiieir  special  work  in 
one  generation  and  went  to  their  reward.  Although 
their  works  do  follow  them,  these  are  in  records  and 
letters  which  are  seldom  read  by  priest-ridden  people 
for  themselves.  Cathedral  pomp  displays  their  statues 
in  the  highest  niches  of  man's  building,  and  the  proud- 
est pinnacle  and  crest  under  heaven  is  called  "apostolic;" 
yet  the  visions  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  and 
a  "  holy  Jerusalem,  descending  out  of  heaven  from 
God,"  reveal  this  high  order  only  on  the  foundations, 
and  "  in  them  the  names  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the 
Lamb."  The  highest  glory  of  man  in  the  Church  of 
God  is  to  work  at  the  base,  and  when  our  work  is  done 
to  have  it,  like  our  life  itself,  "  hid  with  Christ  in  God." 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  147 

The  true  apostolic  mission  is  read  in  the  qualifications 
of  this  order  expressly  given  us  in  the  Scriptures. 

1.  An  apostle  must  have  seen  the  Lord  with  bodily 
eye,  and  have  been  an  eye-and-ear  witness  of  what  the 
gospel  announces  of  fact  in  relation  to  Christ.  Acts  i. 
21,  22 ;  xxii.  14,  15 ;  1  Cor.  ix.  1 ;  xv.  8  ;  1  John  i.  3. 

2.  He  must  have  received  his  commission  immedi- 
ately from  the  Lord,  without  the  intervention  of  man. 
Luke  vi.  13 ;  Gal.  i.  1.  Even  after  the  ascension  of 
our  Lord,  at  the  election  of  Matthias  the  ordaining 
prayer  was,  "  Thou,  Lord,  which  knowest  the  hearts  of 
all  men,  show  whether  of  these  two  thou  hast  chosen." 
The  intervention  of  Ananias  in  the  case  of  Saul  at 
Damascus  was  only  to  receive  his  sight  and  be  filled 
with  the  Holy  Ghost  and  hear :  "  The  God  of  our 
fathers  hath  chosen  thee,  that  thou  shouldest  know  his 
will,  and  see  that  Just  One,  and  shouldest  hear  the 
voice  of  his  mouth." 

3.  He  must  have  had  infallible  inspiration  in  apply- 
ing Old-Testament  scripture  and  writing  New-Testa- 
ment revelation,  historical  and  doctrinal.  Gal.  i.  11,  12 ; 
Acts  xxviii.  23 ;  John  xx.  22 ;  1  Thess.  ii.  13. 

4.  He  must  have  had  the  power  of  working  miracles. 
Acts  ii.  43 ;  2  Cor.  xii.  12. 

6.  The  power,  also,  of  conferring  on  others  miracu- 
lous gifts.  Acts  viii.  17 ;  xix.  6. 

6.  Universality  of  mission.  Matt,  xxviii.  19;  1  Cor. 
iv.  17 ;  2  Cor.  xi.  28. 

7.  Paramount  authority  among  all  the  churches.  1 
Cor.  vii.  17;  John  xx.  23;  Luke  xxii.  29,  30. 

These  qualifications  in  the  aggregate  made  an  apostle, 
and  not  one  of  them  might  be  wanting.  Other  minis- 
ters might  share  in  one  or  more  of  these  marvellous 


148  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

endowments,  but  only  an  apostle  could  unite  them  all. 
It  has  been  alleged  that  the  twelve  were  "  named"  apos- 
tles by  our  Lord  before  these  preternatural  powers  were 
conferred,  and  therefore  it  is  not  necessary  to  limit  the 
designation  to  that  original  band,  their  subsequent  en- 
dowments and  this  name  at  the  first  being  obviously 
separable  and  distinct.  It  is  enough  to  reply  that,  al- 
though they  were  styled  "apostles"  at  the  first  pro- 
leptically  and  formally,  they  were  not  so  called  after- 
ward in  the  familiar  companionship  of  Christ,  but 
"  disciples "  usually,  whether  spoken  of  alone  or  in 
connection  with  other  followers  of  the  Master.  More- 
over, they  were  not  se.nt,  as  the  name  intends,  even  as 
much  as  the  seventy,  who  were  confined  to  Judea  in 
their  mission,  but  kept  for  the  most  part  immediately 
with  the  great  Teacher  himself,  though  exercising  mi- 
raculous power  even  then,  as  the  seventy  did,  who  her- 
alded the  movements  of  Jesus  and  his  school.  It  was 
only  when  actually  endued  with  the  promised  power  of 
the  Holy  Ghost — for  which  they  tarried  at  Jerusalem — 
that  they  became  apostles  indeed  and  in  every  sense  of 
the  name. 

The  assemblage  of  qualifications  would  indicate  every 
important  object  and  end  of  the  office  in  laying  the 
foundations  of  the  Christian  Church  by  their  testimony 
for  the  whole  world  and  for  all  time,  but  foundations 
had  been  laid  before  they  came,  and  these  were  neither 
superseded  nor  altered.  The  consummate  skill  of  apos- 
tolical organization  consisted  largely  in  recognizing  what 
patriarchs  and  prophets  had  transmitted  of  forms,  and  in 
perpetuating  these.  The  temple,  the  altars,  the  priest- 
hood, being  typical  shadows,  must  pass  away  when  the 
substance  of  all  had  been  realized  gloriously.     Duality 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  149 

of  service  at  the  sanctuaries  must  dow  be  unity  in  the 
ecclesiastical  institute.  Our  "  synagogue,"  as  the  apostle 
James  called  a  particular  Christian  church,  must  unite 
before  its  congregation,  reading,  prayer,  preaching,  sing- 
ing, giving  and  sacrament  in  public  service  there,  in- 
stead of  dividing  with  tabernacle  or  temple  any  more  a 
distinctive  portion  of  appointed  worship.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  duality  of  covenants  must  remain  as 
they  were  distinguished  in  the  days  of  David,  the  con- 
ditional and  the  unconditional — that  is,  the  family  cove- 
nant and  its  enlargement  ecclesiastically,  conditioned  on 
the  individual  faith  and  obedience  of  the  participants  in 
every  generation,  and  the  everlasting  covenant  of  grace, 
conditioned  on  the  vicarious  and  perfect  obedience  of 
Messiah  himself.  Beyond  these  elementary  and  seminal 
postulates,  which  the  apostles  explain  so  clearly  in  their 
Epistles,  and  the  accompanying  descent  of  eldership  in 
officering  the  churches  they  planted,  the  errand  of  this 
highest  order  that  ever  appeared  in  the  Christian  ecclesia 
could  not  have  been  governmental  construction  or  direc- 
tion, excepting  as  of  secondary  importance  in  aiding  them 
to  bear  witness  and  in  sustaining  their  testimony  uncor- 
ruptible and  perpetual. 

The  great  end  of  apostolic  mission  was  witness-bear- 
ing, and  almost  every  ordination  with  hands  laid  on 
occurred  as  incidental  to  the  missionary  drift  of  their 
powers  and  their  lives.  But  the  express  declarations  of 
Holy  Scripture  settle  this  point  beyond  a  question,  and 
he  may  run  that  readeth  them.  When  the  Lord  was 
"risen  indeed"  and  held  his  last  interview  with  the 
eleven  at  Jerusalem  a  little  before  his  ascension,  and 
concisely  reviewed  the  tenor  of  his  teaching  and  the 
fulfilment  of  Scripture  in  the  facts  of  his  life  and  pas- 


150  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

sion,  he  declares  to  them,  "And  ye  are  witnesses  of 
these  things."  Luke  xxiv.  48.  After  the  ascension, 
"  when  the  day  of  Pentecost  was  fully  come  "  and  they 
were  "endued  with  power  from  on  high,"  "Peter,  stand- 
ing up  with  the  eleven,  lifted  up  his  voice  "  to  recount, 
just  as  his  Master  had  done  at  the  closing  interview, 
the  fulfilment  of  prophecy  in  the  history  of  Jesus,  and 
exclaimed,  "  Whereof  we  all  are  witnesses."  Not  a  word 
was  uttered  on  that  day  of  "  power "  about  apostolic 
authority  or  paramount  rule  in  their  commission.  Acts 
ii.  32.  Afterward,  when  "many  signs  and  wonders" 
attended  this  witness-bearing,  Avrought  among  the  peo- 
ple "  by  the  hands  of  the  apostles,"  persisting  in  the 
same  strains  of  Scripture  to  preach  Christ  in  the  face 
of  violence  and  persecution,  the  same  preacher  pro- 
claimed, "  And  we  are  witnesses  of  these  things ;  and 
so  is  also  the  Holy  Ghost,  whom  God  hath  given  to 
them  that  obey  him."  Acts  v.  32.  Still  not  an  utter- 
ance more  about  themselves  or  any  claim  to  dominant 
power  apart  from  their  testimonies,  even  to  organ- 
ize the  churches.  And  onward  in  sacred  history, 
when  Cornelius  the  centurion  sent  for  Peter,  and  the 
immense  field  of  Gentile  conversion  was  opened  to  the 
vision  of  this  Jewish  preacher,  and  the  problem  of 
organization  for  the  whole  world  of  a  synagogue  elder- 
ship to  assimilate  the  globe  in  one  ecclesia  would  have 
filled  his  imagination  if  his  main  errand  had  been  to 
found  a  grand  apostolic  see  on  the  face  of  the  earth, — 
even  then  we  have  the  old  story  from  his  lips  only  as  a 
witness:  "And  we  are  witnesses  of  these  things,  which 
he  did  both  in  the  laud  of  the  Jews,  and  in  Jerusalem, 
whom  they  slew  and  hanged  on  a  tree :  him  God  raised 
up  the  third  day,  and  shewed  him  openly ;  not  to  all 


OFFICELS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  151 

the  people,  bat  unto  witnesses  chosen  of  God,  even  to 
us,  who  did  eat  and  drink  with  him  after  he  rose  from 
the  dead."  Acts  x.  41. 

It  has  been  objected  to  this  argument  for  testifying  as 
the  great  end  of  the  apostolic  office,  and  power  in  it  as 
altogether  ministrative  and  subsidiary  to  this  end,  that 
Saul  of  Tarsus  was  made  an  apostle  without  having  had 
the  opportunity  of  personal  intercourse  with  Christ,  as 
the  others  had ;  but  this  case,  on  the  contrary,  is  the 
strongest  corroboration  of  all.  So  necessary  was  it  for  an 
apostle  to  be  qualified  to  bear  witness  by  seeing  and  hear- 
ing with  his  own  senses  that  a  miracle  must  be  wrought 
in  order  to  supply  him  with  what  others  had  enjoyed 
in  a  natural  way.  So  Ananias  affirmed,  "■  The  God  of 
our  fathers  hath  chosen  thee,  that  thou  shouldest  know 
his  will,  and  see  that  Just  One,  and  shouldest  hear  the 
voice  of  his  mouth.  For  thou  shalt  be  his  witness  unto 
all  men  of  what  thou  hast  seen  and  heard."  Acts  xxii. 
14,  15.  When  that  gifted  man  was  afterward  in  per- 
sonal danger  of  being  "  pulled  in  pieces  "  for  his  testi- 
mony, "  the  night  following  the  Lord  stood  by  him,  and 
said,  Be  of  good  cheer,  Paul :  for  as  thou  hast  testified 
of  me  in  Jerusalem,  so  must  thou  boar  witness  also  at 
Rome."  Acts  xxiii.  13.  Did  this  revelation  change  at 
all  the  tenor  of  this  witness  for  Christ?  Did  the  desti- 
nation to  Rome  wake  ambition  at  all  in  the  "  free-born  " 
citizen  of  that  empire  which  governed  the  world,  and 
that  imperial  city  where  power  was  everything,  sur- 
charged with  polities  for  all  religions  and  all  provinces 
alike,  or  turn  his  thoughts  to  fitting  polity  for  the 
Church,  intending  to  profit  in  that  line  by  the  con- 
signment to  Rome  ?  Not  in  the  least.  Before  Agrippa 
it  was  all  the  same — the  same  story,  the  same  testimony, 


152  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  same  avowal  of  this  errand,  until  he  sailed  for  Italy. 
Acts  XX vi. 

Equality  of  the  Apostles. 

Parity  of  rank  on  every  plane  of  office  revealed  in 
the  Bible  is  undoubtedly  the  order  intended  by  our 
exalted  Saviour  and  Head  of  the  Church.  The  ador- 
able Trinity,  in  which  the  relations  of  Father,  Son  and 
Holy  Ghost  are  set  forth  in  familiar  analogies  to  indi- 
cate a  diversity  of  functions,  are  perfectly  equal  in  power 
and  glory,  and  it  is  not  presumption  to  infer  that  equality 
among  the  most  favored  creatures  of  His  Church  would 
emanate  with  the  "  gifts  for  men  "  which  our  Lord  re- 
ceived at  his  enthronement  in  heaven.  The  oneness  of 
commission  itself  im])]ies  equality  of  rank  among  all 
that  receive  it.  In  reviewing,  also,  the  assemblage  of 
qualifications  peculiar  to  the  apostolic  office  the  conclu- 
sion is  inevitable  that  the  apostles  were  equal  to  one  an- 
other in  dignity  and  in  power.  Like  modern  ministers 
holding  the  office  of  presbyter  with  perfect  parity,  some 
were  more  gifted  or  popular  than  others,  while  all  were 
on  a  footing  of  perfect  equality  in  official  rank. 

But  the  world  has  been  confounded  with  the  most 
exorbitant  claim  ever  put  forth  for  unequal  and  un- 
bounded predominance  of  man  over  man,  based  upon 
alleged  inequality  in  the  band  of  apostles.  Peter  was 
made  prince  and  the  Church  was  built  on  him  and  by 
him  as  vicegerent  for  Christ,  say  the  papists;  and  the 
spiritual  despotism  which  has  darkened  the  aimals  of 
Christianity  for  more  than  twelve  hundred  years  must 
be  regarded  as  a  fact  of  such  fearful  magnitude  that  we 
may  not  slight  any  pretence  which  seems  to  color  with 
legitimacy  a  calamity  so  great.     LTnhappily,  the  student 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  153 

has  more  than  the  philosophy  of  history  to  deiiiaud  of 
him  a  thorough  consideration  of  the  figments  on  which 
this  colossal  usurpation  is  built.  The  hasty  presumption 
that  popery  can  Avax  no  more,  that  it  is  dead  at  heart 
and  living  only  at  the  extremities,  and  that  its  arguments 
are  so  obviously  absurd  as  to  need  no  labor  of  polemics 
in  providing  an  armoiy  against  them,  has  doomed  many 
an  educated  minister  to  bitter  disappointment  in  the  field, 
and  contributed  not  a  little  to  the  continuance,  and  even 
to  the  aggression,  of  mediaeval  darkness  on  the  light  of 
civil  and  religious  liberty.  Let  us  patiently  yet  briefly 
contemplate  this  corner-stone  of  monarchy  in  church 
government — the  primacy  of  Peter. 

It  is  admitted  that  Peter  had  an  eminence  among  the 
apostles,  or  a  kind  of  precedence  accorded  to  any  man 
of  strong  character  among  his  equals.  One  of  the  fii'st 
to  be  called,  and  perhaps  the  oldest  man  of  the  number, 
ardent  and  impetuous  in  his  nature,  forward  to  speak  and 
forward  to  act,  and  consequently  admired  by  the  multi- 
tude, so  that  we  read  of  them  bringing  the  sick  and  the 
palsied  to  the  way  on  which  he  would  pass  that  even  his 
shadow  might  go  over  them, — on  this  account  the  early 
Fathers  may  have  called  him  princeps  aposfolorum  with- 
out meaning  more  than  ancient  scholars  meant  when  they 
called  Cicero  princeps  oratorum  or  Virgil  princeps  poe- 
tarum,  or  than  we  mean  when  we  call  Turretine,  Owen 
or  Edwards  "  prince  of  theologians."  That  nothing  but 
a  prominence  of  this  kind  was  the  superiority  of  Peter 
is  argued — 

(1)  From  the  very  nature  of  tlie  office :  it  had  no 
degrees  either  of  infallibility  or  of  power.  Each  apostle 
had  the  inspiration,  the  personal  knowledge,  of  Christ,  the 
universality  of  mission   and   the    paramount  authority 


154  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

which  made  him  a  peer  of  the  highest  dignity  conceiv- 
able in  the  Church — that  of  a  consecrated  witness  and 
missionary  of  the  cross. 

(2)  Peter  himself  never  claimed  this  alleged  suprem- 
acy. His  pretended  successors  have  always  announced 
their  authority  as  a  matter  of  duty,  and  no  earthly 
potentates  can  be  compared  with  them  in  the  jealousy 
of  emphasis  with  which  their  claims  are  proclaimed. 
The  beginning  of  a  dynasty  must,  of  course,  make 
proclamation  and  define  its  prerogatives  with  all  pos- 
sible distinctness.  As  a  good  apostle  he  would  magnify 
his  office  and  secure  heed  to  his  instructions  and  orders  by 
asserting  the  primacy  conferred  by  the  Master ;  but  he 
never  hinted  such  a  thing  in  any  speech  or  sermon  or 
letter  on  occasions  wliich  would  have  called  it  out  if  it 
existed.  An  apostle,  a  servant,  an  elder,  he  calls  him- 
self on  such  occasions  in  those  encyclical  letters  of  his 
which  are  canonical  and  evidently  reveal  the  utmost  of 
his  claims  to  rank  and  power  in  the  Church. 

(3)  Peter's  precedence  is  not  mentioned  by  any  other 
apostle.  If  he  had  been  invested  with  superior  author- 
ity, and  was  too  self-denying  to  make  it  known,  certain- 
ly others  faithful  and  inspired  would  have  taken  some 
occasion  to  indicate  his  primacy  in  loyal  compliance 
with  the  will  of  the  Master  in  promoting  him  to  be 
the  worshipful  source  of  ecclesiastical  power  on  earth. 
But  there  is  not  a  hint  of  any  such  deference,  and  there 
is  much  written  that  is  incompatible  with  even  a  chief 
respectability  in  the  college  of  apostles.  Paul  wrote,  "I 
suppose,  I  was  not  a  whit  behind  the  very  chiefest 
of  apostles,"  "James,  Cephas  and  John,  who  seemed 
to  be  pillars."  Surely,  these  expressions  level  Peter 
and  disparage  him  when  he  subjoins  (Gal.  ii.  11),  "But 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  155 

wheu  Peter  was  come  to  Antioch.  I  withstood  him  to  tlie 
face,  because  he  was  to  be  blamed."  And  he  was  blamed 
for  "  dissimulation,"  as  the  sequel  of  this  quotation 
shows. 

(4)  The  Master  himself  never  mentioned  the  destined 
supremacy  of  Peter  when  he  was  particular  to  settle  dis- 
putes about  precedence  among  the  disciples.  On  all 
occasions  he  rebuked  ambition  and  any  hope  of  pre- 
eminence in  his  kingdom  (Matt.  xx.  26;  xxiii.  8);  and 
no  one  was  rebuked  by  him  with  such  frequency  and 
humiliating  severity  as  was  Peter :  "  Get  thee  behind 
me,  Satan,  thou  art  an  oifence  to  me  ;  for  thou  savorest 
not  the  things  that  be  of  God ;  but  the  things  that  be  of 
men."  And  how  was  the  rash  temper  of  this  headlong 
disciple  at  fault  when  his  Master  exclaimed,  "  Put  up 
thy  sword  into  its  place ;  for  all  they  that  take  the  sword 
shall  perish  by  the  sword  "  !  The  idea  that  such  a  fol- 
lower was  to  be  exalted  over  "  the  disciple  whom  Jesus 
loved"  and  all  other  disciples  is  from  this  point  of  view 
in  which  he  stood  before  his  Lord  preposterous. 

(5)  No  declaration  of  Scripture  in  any  place  confers 
this  primacy.  Incidental  expressions  besides  the  narra- 
tive are  fatal  to  the  claim,  though  silence  alone  would 
be  repudiation.  When  catalogues  of  New-Testament 
gifts  are  given  with  minutest  detail,  apostles,  as  a  co- 
equal band,  are  at  the  head,  without  distinction  of  any 
one.  When  parties  arose  among  the  peo])le  of  Corinth, 
saying,  "  I  am  of  Paul,  and  I  of  Apollos,  and  I  of 
Cephas,  and  I  of  Christ,"  the  reprimand,  "Is  Christ 
divided?"  pungently  rebukes  a  factious  adiierence  to 
one  apostle  more  than  to  another  as  treason  to  Christ 
himself  The  rock  on  which  the  monarchy  of  Peter  is 
builded  was  viewed  in  the  sublime  visions  of  John,  that 


156  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

saw  it  through  all  the  magnifying  mists  of  intervening 
history  as  only  one  of  twelve  foundations  which  had 
the  names  of  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb  inscribed. 
Rev.  xxi.  14. 

(6)  Miscellaneous  facts  are  even  yet  more  fatal  to  the 
claim.  Peter  fell  during  the  arraignment  of  his  Master 
iu  a  manner  of  superlative  atrocity  and  perpetual  shame, 
denying  him  openly  and  profanely  just  after  the  keys 
had  been  given  and  he  had  protested  unchangeable 
fidelity.  The  gates  of  hell  prevailed  against  him  at 
the  first  encounter  and  trial  of  his  infallibility.  At 
the  election  of  Matthias  he  made  a  speech  defining  the 
proper  qualifications  of  a  candidate  without  the  slightest 
dictation  of  authority  iu  the  appointment.  The  suf- 
frages of  the  assembly  and  their  invocation  to  the  Head 
himself  for  direction  show  conclusively  that  neither 
Peter  nor  the  people  imagined  a  fountain  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal power  on  earth  could  be  in  him  or  in  all  the  eleven 
together.  Again,  at  the  election  of  deacons  (Acts  vi.), 
he  does  not  figure  individually  at  all.  The  twelve 
called  the  multitude  together ;  the  twelve  laid  on  their 
hands  alike  in  the  ordination,  and  then  alike  gave 
themselves  to  prayer  and  to  preaching. 

Peter  and  John  were  sent  together  (Acts  viii.)  to  in- 
spect the  work  of  Philip  and  establish  the  converts 
made  by  his  preaching.  Equals  may  be  sent  by  equals 
in  the  way  of  delegation,  but  for  a  prince  to  be  sent  by 
subjects,  and  in  a  commission  of  entire  equality  with 
one  of  them,  is  incongruous  and  improbable. 

At  the  council  in  Jerusalem  (Acts  xv.)  James  pre- 
sided in  the  presence  of  Peter.  The  latter  made  the 
first  address,  but  Barnabas  and  Paul  also  adflressed  the 
assembly,  and  it  is   recorded   with  emphasis  that  the 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  157 

whole  multitude  kept  silence  in  order  to  hear  them. 
James  spoke  last,  summing  up  the  opinions  of  the 
council  in  his  definitive  sentence — a  tact  which  no 
explanation  can  reconcile  with  the  uniform  arrogance 
of  Peter's  pretended  successors  at  Rome,  popes  or 
legates. 

Again,  two  other  apostles  have  eminen(ie  alleged  in 
Scripture  before  which  that  of  Peter  is  pale.  How 
patent  is  that  of  Paul  in  the  volume  of  sacred  history 
and  all  Christian  tradition  as  author,  scholar,  logician, 
missionary  and  martyr!  And  John,  the  beloved  dis- 
ciple, who  could  lean  on  the  bosom  of  the  Saviour  and 
ask  him  questions  which  no  other  disciple  would  ven- 
ture to  propose — who,  though  he  fled  with  the  others 
in  a  panic  at  the  betrayal  and  ap])rehension  of  Jesus, 
would  stand  near  the  cross  to  invite  the  agonizing  Christ 
to  fix  an  eye  on  him  for  sympathy  and  commit  to  his 
care  the  tenderest  earthly  one,  his  mother !  Mary  was 
not  confided  to  the  guardianship  of  Peter.  John  sur- 
vived all  the  other  apostles,  and  lived  longest  to  guide 
and  establish  the  Church  with  forming  hand.  Thus  we 
might  easily  put  uj)  rival  claims  for  almost  any  of  the 
band  if  we  did  not  think  it  impious  to  disturb  the 
parity  which  our   Lord  ordained. 

With  all  this  presumption  against  primacy  in  Peter 
so  fairly  made  out  in  collating  sacred  records,  we  are 
met  by  one  passage  in  the  memorable  colloquy  of  our 
Lord  with  Peter  (Matt.  xvi.  18) — a  passage  with  which 
millions  of  the  Christian  name  are  made  familiar  with- 
out being  allowed  to  read  the  Bible  anywhere  for  them- 
selves, and,  being  so  detached,  it  is  made  plausible  by  a 
crafty  exegesis :  "  And  I  say  also  unto  thee.  That  thou 
art  Peter,  and  upon  this  rock  I  will  build  my  church ; 


158  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  the  gates  of  hell  shall  not  prevail  against  it."  In 
the  original  two  words  of  similar  form  {fIeTpo<;  and 
Tierpa)  are  used  for  antithetical  force  in  the  play  of 
words,  or  the  rhetorical  figure  called  paronomasia.  In- 
stead of  "Peter"  and  "rock"  meaning  the  same  person 
or  thing,  there  is  the  very  opposite  construction — antith- 
esis between  the  two  persons  in  this  dialogue.  One  is 
Peter  the  apostle  ]  the  other  is  Christ  himself,  nirpoi; 
("  Peter  ")  signifies  a  piece  of  rock  or  stone  or  fragment 
broken  off,  but  ■nix pa  ("  rock  ")  means  the  solid  body  of 
imbedded  rock  out  of  which  stones  are  hewn  or  sepul- 
chres carved,  or  in  which  caverns  are  made.  And  when 
we  look  for  the  uses  of  the  demonstrative  pronoun,  rauzrj 
("this")  in  the  conversations  of  our  Lord,  it  always 
means  himself,  not  any  other :  "  Destroy  this  temple 
and  in  three  days,  I  will  raise  it  up."  John  ii.  19.  No 
human  being  throughout  the  Scriptures  is  called  a  rock ; 
all  inspiration  reveals  the  Messiah  alone  as  the  Rock  on 
which  the  Church  is  built.  (See  1  Cor.  iii.  11  ;  1  Pet. 
ii.  4,  5.)  This  interpretation  was  that  of  Augustine, 
Francis  Turretine,  and  J.  Addison  Alexander,  whose 
masterly  exposition  of  Matt.  xvi.  should  be  studied 
with  care  as  a  model  of  exegesis. 

Akin  to  this  fair  interpretation  is  that  which  pre- 
vailed anions:  the  Reformers  to  a  considerable  extent. 
The  word  nerpa  ("  rock  ")  may  refer  to  the  confession 
made  in  the  context  preceding  ver.  16  :  "Thou  art  the 
Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God."  There  is  an  inter- 
vening verse  (1 7) :  "  And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto 
him,  Blessed  art  thou,  Simon  Bar-jona ;  for  flesh  and 
blood  hath  not  revealed  it  unto  thee,  but  my  Father 
which  is  in  heaven."  This  "  Petrine  confession,"  as 
Lange  and  others  allege,  is  the  "  rock "  on  which  the 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  159 

Chlirch  is  built.  The  rayry;(" this")  would,  then,  have 
to  reach  over  an  intervening  antecedent  to  one  more 
remote ;  but,  though  this  often  occurs,  it  is  by  exegetical 
necessity,  of  which  there  is  none  here,  when  Christ 
himself  is  the  Rock. 

If  we  take  the  sense  given  by  Tertullian  and  Am- 
brose— that  Peter  himself  is  the  rock  intended  here — 
and  reduce  the  beautiful  paronomasia  to  mere  allitera- 
tion, then  we  must  ask,  Why  did  not  our  Lord  say 
"thee"  at  once — "on  thee  will  I  build  my  Church"? 
It  was  not  characteristic  of  his  sacred  lips  to  utter  the 
jingle  of  alliteration.  Yet  those  Fathers  did  not  dream 
of  the  monstrous  interpretation  which  puts  Peter  in  the 
place  of  Christ.  It  was  only  through  the  agency  of 
Peter  in  building  the  Church,  as  predicted  in  the  word 
ocxooofjiyjaco  ("I  will  build"),  that  these  early  Fathers 
considered  his  importance  at  the  foundation  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church,  and,  accordingly,  the  striking  fulfilment  came 
when  Peter  was  the  first  to  preach,  both  to  Jews  and  to 
Gentiles,  under  the  power  of  Pentecostal  charisms.  The 
wonderful  accessions  by  means  of  his  preaching  and  that 
of  others  at  the  beginning  are  mentioned  as  additions  to  a 
Church  already  existing,  called  by  the  Spirit  of  inspira- 
tion the  Church.  Acts  ii.  47.  The  gloss  of  popery 
would  blot  out  the  heritage  of  Hebrew  Christianity  and 
make  the  transition  from  Old  Testament  to  New  a 
stoppage  on  the  Church  line  over  which  nothing  can 
pass  but  a  castaway  hierarchy. 

Cardinals  of  renown — Bellarmine  and  Wiseman — 
have  pressed  another  plea  for  the  primacy  of  Peter  from 
the  formula  of  his  restoration  to  the  grade  of  ordinary 
apostleship  and  the  confidence  of  others  after  the  shame- 
ful inconstancy  with  which  he  had  denied  his  Lord  and 


160  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Master.  (See  John  xxi.  15,  16,  where,  on  Peter's  re- 
peated answer  to  the  solemn  question,  "  Lovest  thou 
me?"  he  was  inaugurated  pre-eminently,  they  say,  in  the 
signal  words,  "  Feed  my  sheep,"  "  Feed  my  lambs.") 
Strange  that  such  dignitaries  overlook  Peter's  own 
words  in  the  construction  of  his  pre-eminence  (1  Pet. 
V.  1-4) :  "  The  elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort, 
who  am  also  an  elder,  and  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of 
Christ,  and  also  a  partaker  of  the  glory  that  shall  be  re- 
vealed :  feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is  among  you,  tak- 
ing the  oversight  thereof,  not  by  constraint,  but  will- 
ingly ;  not  for  filthy  lucre,  but  of  a  ready  mind  ;  neither 
as  being  lords  over  God's  heritage,  but  being  ensamples 
to  the  flock.  And  when  the  chief  Shepherd  shall  appear 
ye  shall  receive  a  crown  of  glory  that  fadeth  not  away." 
Every  line  of  this  quotation,  without  a  comment,  must 
refute  Bellarmine  and  reduce  the  conceits  of  such  in- 
terpreters. 

2.  Succession. 
If  no  primacy  can  be  admitted,  under  the  light  of 
God's  word,  in  the  college  of  the  apostles,  the  derivation 
of  it  in  history  must  be  rejected  as  usurpation,  and  anti- 
Christian  in  its  nature.  Unhappily,  however,  the  logic 
of  usurped  authority,  both  in  Church  and  in  State, 
becomes  in  the  course  of  time  arrogant  as  it  is  hoary 
and  dogmatic  as  it  is  weak ;  and  when  the  word  of  God 
is  a  sealed  book  to  the  people  and  no  beginning  there 
can  be  seen  with  their  own  eyes,  they  are  pointed  to  the 
fabric  itself,  now  gray  with  traditions,  and  thus  made  to 
believe  that  such  a  buildino;  must  have  had  its  "  founda- 
tion  in  the  holy  mountains."  It  is,  then,  a  part  of  our 
task  to  refute  in  detail  the  inconsequence  as  well  as  the 
original    premises.     A    ministry    of  witnessing,    as    we 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  161 

have  seen  that  of  the  apostles  to  be,  is  in  its  nature 
contemporaneous  with  the  facts  themselves  attested,  and 
therefore  essentially  transient.  Here  we  might  fairly 
desist  from  the  discussion  w4iich  comes  down  the  lines 
of  alleged  transmission,  but  vain  tradition  hinders  a 
brevity  like  this.  Two  schemes  of  apostolic  succession 
meet  us  here — the  popish  and  the  prelatic,  monarchy 
and  aristocracy — in  Church  government.  The  one  claims 
one  line  from  Peter  alone ;  the  other,  as  many  lines  as 
there  were  apostles  and  have  been  prelates. 

Respecting  the  former,  the  Romish  claim,  we  have 
already  seen  that  the  first  principle  of  it,  the  supremacy 
of  Peter,  is  untenable  in  tlie  light  of  Holy  Scripture, 
and  no  derivation  from  him,  of  course,  can  be  traced  in 
the  Bible  or  authentic  history.  We  now  affirm  that 
even  if  Peter  had  the  pre-eminence  in  sacred  history 
it  died  with  himself;  it  could  not  have  been  traus- 
mitted — 

1.  Because  the  Scriptures  are  silent  on  the  subject. 
Whether  they  be  received  as  the  only  rule  of  faitii  and 
practice  or  not,  silence  on  the  point  is  fatal,  because, 
next  to  the  beiug  of  a  God  and  the  mission  of  his  Sou, 
the  most  important  article  of  Christianity  is  uot  men- 
tioned on  their  pages  at  this  view  of  Church  polity. 
The  Bible  gives  us  minor  offices  with  minuteness  of  de- 
tail— the  propliets,  evangelists,  elders,  deacons  and  dea- 
conesses— but  not  a  woid  respecting  this  great  office,  the 
fountain  of  all  ecclesiastical  office  or  authority  u])on 
earth,  a  feature  masked  on  Christianity  which  alters 
alike  its  aspect,  its  nature,  its  liberty,  life  and  blessed- 
ness. Indeed,  ''  the  names  of  blasphemy  "  seem  to  be 
inscribed  on  this  succession  when  standard  polemics 
would  say  "  our  Lord  God  the  pope,"  and  such  a 
11 


162  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

champion  as  Bellarraine  would  die  leaving  in  legacy  "half 
his  soul  to  the  Virgin  Marv,  and  the  other  half  to  her 
Son,  Jesus  Ciirist."  Surely,  if  such  be  Christian  re- 
ligion, the  inspired  records  would  not  have  been  silent 
on  what  we  say  of  its  incredibility. 

If  history  were  luminous  and  authentic  on  the  actual 
transmission  of  this  line,  there  might  be  some  color  of 
claim  in  the  tradition ;  but  history  never  presented  a 
more  vexed  and  still  unsettled  question  than  that  of  a 
legitimate  papacy.  Who  is  the  pope,  when  so  many 
chances  may  have  broken  the  descent,  and  so  many 
severances  have  sundered  the  chain  and  made  suc- 
cessions but  spurious  till  the  end  of  time?  Who  is  he 
in  history,  when  one  man  is  enthroned  by  cardinals  and 
another  by  a  mob  at  Rome,  or  when  the  conclave  has 
elected  one  and  the  king  of  France  or  the  emperor  of 
Germany  another?  Which  is  pope,  when  one  is  mitred 
at  Rome  and  the  other  at  Avignon,  or  when  the  triple 
crown  is  seized  with  triple  hands  and  the  world  is 
shaken  by  the  noise  of  three  thunders  all  equally  in- 
fallible and  equally  fatal  to  the  head  of  a  rival?  Man's 
salvation,  according  to  this  claim,  depends  on  a  problem 
in  history  which  all  candid  research  must  give  up  in 
despair. 

2.  The  express  mention  in  Scripture  of  despotic 
usurpation  to  come  after  the  apostles  have  left  the 
stage,  predicted  in  the  prophecies  of  Daniel,  the  Epistles 
of  Paul  and  the  visions  of  John  in  Patmos,  and  de- 
scribed as  "  anti-Christian,"  "  the  mystery  of  iniquity," 
"that  wicked,"  "that  man  of  sin,  the  son  of  perdition  ; 
who  opposeth  and  exaltetii  himself  above  all  that  is 
called  God,  or  that  is  worshipped;  so  that  he,  as  God, 
sitteth  in  the  temple  of  God,  showing  himself  that  he 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  163 

is  God."  2  Thess.  ii.  4.  Whether  we  apply  the  descrip- 
tion to  this  papal  rise  and  succession  or  not,  the  argu- 
ment is  good  against  it,  for  the  Bible  would  surely  in- 
form us  of  the  true  power  when  denouncing  the  false, 
and  refer  us  to  legitimate  authority  when  warning  us 
against  the  illegitimate,  as  it  does  continually  in  the 
pledge  and  promise  of  Christ  for  his  presence  and  power 
alway,  even  to  the  end.  Otherwise,  the  Holy  Scriptures 
would  be  a  directory  for  the  Church  inferior  even  to  the 
statutes  of  men  in  the  common  codes  and  proclamations 
of  State. 

3.  Such  a  succession  destrovs  New-Testament  libertv. 
Nothing  is  more  abundantly  revealed  than  superior 
liberty  under  this  latter  dispensation,  freedom  from 
the  yoke  and  burdens  which  our  fathers  were  not  able 
to  bear,  the  handwriting  of  ordinances,  cumbrous  ritual 
and  stringent  authority  of  a  carnal  priesthood.  But  no 
domination  in  the  priesthood  of  old  can  be  compared  for 
spiritual  despotism  with  this  power,  whose  coming  upon 
the  Church  has  been  "  with  all  deceivableness  of  un- 
righteousness." As  early  as  the  fourth  century,  M'hen 
his  power  was  but  incipient  and  the  superstitious  bands 
he  has  gathered  lay  scattered  about  with  no  one  master  to 
fasten  them,  Augustine  said  the  yoke  laid  upon  the  Jews 
was  more  supportable  than  that  upon  the  Christians  of 
his  day. 

4.  It  destroys  even  apostolic  prestige.  If  Peter  had 
a  vicegerent  supremacy,  continued  in  his  alleged  suc- 
cessors, the  first  of  these,  according  to  one  of  the  con- 
flicting catalogues  of  Roman  bishops,  must  have  been 
Linus,  a  name  unknown  in  Scripture  and  subsequent 
history  except  the  catalogue  alone.  John  lived  some 
thirty  years  after  Peter,  writing  canonical  Scripture  and 


164  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

entitled  as  much  as  auy  of  the  apostles  had  been  to 
exercise  paramount  authority  in  all  the  churches ;  but 
he  is,  of  course,  to  be  subject  to  any  obscure  head  in  this 
succession  while  he  survives,  and  bound  to  submit  him- 
self, his  acts  and  his  revelations  to  the  Index  of  some 
Linus,  Clement,  Cletus  or  Anacletus. 

5.  It  supersedes  the  use  of  inspired  Scriptures.  Peter 
himself  was  busy  before  his  demise  in  furnishing  words 
of  inspiration  for  the  guidance  of  the  Church  after  he 
should  put  off  his  tabernacle,  intimating  in  the  plainest 
manner  that  the  Holy  Scriptures,  and  not  any  living 
man  or  succession  of  men,  were  to  follow  him  in  his 
extraordinary  or  apostolical  authority  :  "  Yea,  I  think 
it  meet,  as  long  as  I  am  in  this  tabernacle,  to  stir  you 
up,  by  putting  you  in  remembrance ;  knowing  that 
shortly  I  must  put  off  this  my  tabernacle,  even  as  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ  hath  shewed  me.  Moreover  I  will 
endeavor  that  ye  may  be  able  after  my  decease  to 
have  these  things  always  in  remembrance."  2  Pet.  i. 
13-15.  Obviously,  there  can  be  no  apostolical  succes- 
sion but  that  of  one  generation  to  another,  holding  in 
remembrance  the  testimony  of  apostles  placed  on  record 
by  themselves  and  the  inspiration  which  indited  that 
record.  A  succession  of  fallible  or  infallible  men  to 
dictate  what  we  must  believe  and  what  we  must  do 
dispenses  with  a  written  word  for  such  a  purpose,  and 
naturally,  therefore,  becomes  indifferent  to  this  word 
and  intent  on  hiding  and  chaining  it  when  the  chief 
thing  to  be  believed  and  to  be  done  perpetually — their 
own  apostolate — is  not  even  hinted  on  its  pages. 

6.  Such  a  succession  also  usurps  the  office  and  work 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  Another  agent  stands  up  to  take 
of  the  things  which  are  Christ's  and  show  them  to  us. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  165 

Another  paraclete  appears  to  comfort  the  Church  and 
carry  on  the  development  of  her  life  and  germs  of  faith 
and  practice  committed  to  her  culture.  Another  au- 
thority calls  men  to  the  ministry,  trains  them,  furnishes 
tliem  for  work  and  sends  them  to  the  field  of  their 
destination.  Another  test  of  union  to  Christ  than  the 
graces  of  the  Spirit  claims  the  devout  aspirations  of  the 
faithful — the  acknowledgment  of  this  incarnate  legit- 
imacy which  ignores  the  fruit  of  the  Spirit  as  evidence 
of  its  own  valid  "transmission.  In  this  connection  it 
becomes  that  corporate  apostasy  described  in  Heb.  vi. 
4-8  :  '*  For  it  is  impossible  for  those  who  were  once 
enlightened,  and  have  tasted  of  the  heavenly  gift,  and 
were  made  partakers  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  have  tasted 
the  good  word  of  God,  and  the  powers  of  the  world  to 
come,  if  they  shall  fall  away,  to  renew  them  again  unto 
repentance;  seeing  they  crucify  to  themselves  the  Son 
of  God  afresh,  and  put  him  to  an  open  shame."  Let 
history  come  and  here  offer  an  exegesis  which  might 
remove  a  controversy  between  Calvinist  and  Arminian 
embarrassing  to  both — between  the  saints'  perseverance 
and  the  restoration  of  backsliders,  individually  consid- 
ered. It  is  the  noun  of  multitude,  the  body  ecclesias- 
tical, the  close  corporation,  which  perpetuates  itself  be- 
yond recall,  that  specially  hazards  the  "impossible" 
here. 

7.  Such  a  succession  usurps  the  office  of  Christ  him- 
self, substituting  a  carnal  vicegerency  for  the  spiritual 
presence  of  our  Lord  promised  to  be  everywhere  and 
alway.  No  created  being,  man  or  angel,  could  bear 
upon  his  shoulder  Avhat  this  monarchy  affects.  To  be 
the  vicegerency  of  Christ,  as  it  pretends,  there  must  be 
much   of  omniscience  and  omnipotence  conferred  upon 


166  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

mortals — to  know  the  condition  of  every  church,  the 
head  and  heart  of  every  minister,  and  even  the  invisible 
designs  of  earth  and  hell  against  the  Church.  There 
must  be,  also,  the  transfer  of  every  other  kind  of  au- 
thority made  subsidiary  in  the  hands  of  our  exalted 
Lord,  such  as  the  Government  of  governments.  King 
of  kings  and  Lord  of  lords  for  the  supreme  safety  and 
welfare  of  the  Church.  The  arrant  pretensions  of  Hil- 
debrand  in  his  "  dictates  "  are  fair  and  logical  inferences 
of  great  moderation  at  this  view.  Popes  Innocent  and 
Adrian  are  specimens  of  meekness,  and  to  make  a  hos- 
tler of  an  emperor  at  the  stirrup  of  His  Holiness  did 
but  signify  the  paramount  dominion  of  a  chief  priest  in 
Christendom.  And,  far  beyond  this  political  supremacy, 
there  must  be  moral  poAver  in  such  imperial  pretension 
derived  from  Christ,  in  whom  it  is  infinite — power  to 
turn  the  hearts  of  men  at  his  pleasure  and  make  them 
willing  in  the  day  of  his  power — else  infallibility  is  not 
Christian  at  all,  and  is  foiled  in  its  efforts  and  impotent 
in  its  aim.  Surely  the  crown  of  Jesus  cannot  rest  upon 
the  mitre  of  such  ambition ! 

The  papal  doctrine  of  succession  has  to  be  refuted  in 
three  premises  of  the  system  :  (1)  The  original  primacy 
of  Peter ;  (2)  The  transmission  of  it  through  successive 
generations ;  and  (3)  The  identification  of  it  in  the  line 
of  bishops  at  Rome.  In  considering  the  absurdity  of 
such  transmission  anywhere  we  could  not  avoid  some 
special  reference  to  this  descent  by  way  of  illustration, 
for  the  Latin  line  is  the  only  Western  one  extant,  and 
ever  loud  and  aggressive,  both  in  history  and  in  obser- 
vation, to  challenge  our  attention.  We  should,  there- 
fore, now  consider  briefly  this  third  point.  If  Peter 
had    a   pre-eminence   conferred    by   his    Master  in   the 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  167 

midst  of  the  twelve,  aud  this  pre-eminence  descended 
by  divine  appointment  anywhere,  it  cannot  have  come 
down  in  the  channel  of  Roman  bishops — 

1.  Because  Peter  was  never  at  Rome  at  all,  so  far  as 
sacred  history  has  made  his  record.  This  reveals  minutely 
his  ti-avels  and  labors  in  witnessing  for  Christ — his  visits  to 
Samaria,  Lydda,  Joppa,  Csesarea,  etc. — and  never  a  word 
of  his  visit  to  Rome,  a  destination  compared  with  which 
all  other  acts  and  travels  of  all  the  apostles  were  unim- 
poi-tant  details  if  the  assumption  of  a  mere  tradition  that 
he  went  there  on  any  other  errand  than  to  die  were  true. 
Paul  went  to  Rome,  and  the  same  historian  gives  to  this 
fact  a  conspicuous  record.  That  great  apostle  himself  in 
his  extensive  correspondence  from  and  to  Rome  never 
mentions  Peter,  while  he  names  many  others  entitled  to 
lionor  as  fellow-laborers  in  planting  the  gospel  there. 
If  Peter  was  absent  on  account  of  persecution  or  on  the 
business  of  a  vicegerent,  why  does  he  not  write  to 
them,  as  Cyprian  afterward  did  when  driven  from  his 
flock  by  the  sword  of  violence?  Not  even  a  Romish 
tradition  exists  of  such  pastoral  fidelity.  The  letters  he 
did  write  make  no  mention  of  Rome  in  either  the 
address,  the  date  or  the  body  of  a  letter.  The  place 
from  which  one  was  written  is  Babylon,  where  he  had 
gone  as  the  apostle  of  the  circumcision,  it  being  the 
centre  of  Jewish  influence  and  numbers  from  the  time 
of  Daniel  to  that  of  the  Talmud.  The  date  of  this 
Epistle  is  reckoned  fairly  to  have  been  within  the  year 
60,  and  on  its  pages  we  learn  that  he  had  been  pre- 
viously engaged  in  Asia,  Poutus,  Bithynia  and  Cappa- 
docia.  About  the  year  51  he  must  have  been  at  the 
council  of  apostles  and  elders  in  Jerusalem,  and  could 
not  have  been  at  Rome  previously ;    for  the  inspired 


168  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

narrative  fills  up  the  time  with  his  labors  elsewhere. 
Between  51  and  60  he  must  have  been  at  Antioch, 
where  history  assigns  at  least  five  years  of  his  life, 
and  most  papal  writers  say  seven.  The  other  three  or 
four  years  of  his  life,  at  most,  in  this  interval,  must 
have  been  little  enough  time  to  make  the  great  circuit 
of  his  acquaintance  through  Asia  Minor  embraced  in 
the  address  of  his  letters.  We  must  look  for  his  resi- 
dence at  Rome,  therefore,  after  the  year  60,  at  wliich 
date,  probably,  his  First  Epistle  was  written  from  Bab- 
ylon. He  could  not  have  been  there  within  the  first  four 
years  after  that  date,  for,  not  to  speak  of  the  great  dis- 
tance and  delay  of  such  a  journey,  stopping  on  his  way 
so  much  to  confirm  the  believers  in  every  city,  we  must 
put  dowu  the  presence  of  Paul  at  Rome  within  this 
period — say  the  year  62,  which  is  generally  assigned 
for  his  arrival  there.  Peter  could  not  have  been  there 
before  Paul  arrived  and  not  be  mentioned  at  all  among- 
the  others  who  had  planted  the  gospel  there  and  met 
Paul  at  Appii  forum.  And  for  the  same  reason  he 
could  not  have  been  there  for  the  next  two  years,  during 
which  Paul  dwelt  in  his  own  hired  house.  We  have 
but  three  years  of  Peter's  life  remaining — from  64  to 
67 — in  which  it  would  seem  possible  for  him  to  have 
been  at  Rome  at  all.  But  these  three  years  were  the 
time  of  persecution  begun  by  Nero  in  64 — the  very  date 
of  martyrdom  to  him  and  Paul  together  given  in  the 
reckoning  of  many  on  this  mere  tradition.  Yet,  adding 
three  years  more,  the  later  date  of  67  might  have  given 
him  opportunity,  like  Paul,  to  bear  witness  for  Christ  at 
Rome  also,  but  surely  could  have  given  him  no  possi- 
bility in  that  storm  of  founding  and  regulating  an 
apostolic  see  for  all  generations. 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  169 

2.  Admitting,  however,  that  Peter  did  fix  at  Rome 
the  seat  of  liis  authority,  he  could  not  have  been  at  the 
foundation  of  that  imperial  Church.  The  Epistles  of 
Paul  put  it  beyond  a  doubt  that  others  had  begun  the 
organization  at  Rome,  and  he  must  have  built  on  other 
men's  foundation  aud  been  himself  a  successor  in  the 
line  orjo-inatino;  there. 

3.  Admitting,  again,  that  Peter  could  have  been  there 
as  an  apostolic  bishop  and  first  bishop  too,  why  should 
the  line  he  started  at  Rome  be  preferred  to  the  line  he 
started  at  Antioch,  where  he  must  have  labored  in  the 
vigor  and  prime  of  apostolic  virtue,  and  far  longer  time 
than  conjecture  could  allow  him  at  Rome? 

4.  The  successors  at  Rome  never  claimed  this  suprem- 
acy of  power  in  the  earlier  centuries.  Late  as  the  close 
of  the  sixth  century  Gregory  the  Great — by  no  means 
backward  to  assert  prerogatives — declared,  in  opposition 
to  the  claim  of  primacy  by  John  the  Faster  at  Constan- 
tinople, that  for  any  man  to  pretend  authority  over  all 
Christendom  was  of  the  devil,  anti-Christian  and  ac- 
cursed. 

5.  Others  would  not  concede  it  for  centuries  after  the 
claim  was  made.  The  reluctance  of  thrones  and  mitres, 
councils,  universities,  and  even  of  cloisters,  the  confusion 
of  its  champions  among  themselves  in  every  attempt  to 
define  the  rights  and  limits  of  this  papal  ascendency,  fill 
the  largest  page  of  mediseval  history  and  prove  that  it 
was  a  novel  usurpation.  Infallibility  faltered  all  the 
way  down  to  the  Council  of  Trent.  Liberius  subscribed 
the  Arian  heresy,  Zosimus  condemned,  approved,  sanc- 
tioned and  cursed  the  Pelagian  faith  with  as  many  turns 
as  he  had  visits  from  the  heretic  or  letters  from  Augus- 
tine.    Vigilius  changed  his  faith  five  times  at  the  nod  of 


170  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

an  emperor,  and  Honorius  to  this  day  lies  accursed  as  a 
heretic  by  the  Sixth  General  Council  and  the  voice  of 
his  own  successors. 

6.  The  supremacy  of  the  Roman  see  may  be  explained 
as  a  matter  of  fact  without  the  hypothesis  of  a  line  from 
Peter.  It  is  neither  philosophical  nor  religious  to  give 
more  causes  than  are  sufficient  to  account  for  any  plie- 
nomenon.  Church  history  points  out  the  ways  in  which 
this  arrogance  advanced  to  its  acme  of  power.  It  was 
the  only  apostolic  see  in  the  West,  and  took  advantage 
of  this  unity  as  umpire  in  controversies,  which  were  in- 
cessant among  the  bishops  of  the  East,  and  led  them  to 
lay  Greek  mitres  at  the  feet  of  this  one  Latin  pope.  Its 
position  at  the  Imperial  City,  so  convenient  for  alliance 
with  civil  and  military  power,  the  dexterity  of  pontiffs 
in  surviving  the  wreck  of  empire  and  winning  to  them- 
selves the  veneration  with  which  Goths  and  Vandals 
and  Lombards  had  regarded  their  own  chief  Druid — 
in  short,  the  whole  series  of  causes  in  religious  quarrel, 
political  finesse  and  fortunate  concurrence  of  oppor- 
tunities for  affsrandizement — will  not  allow  us  for  a 
moment  to  feel  the  need  of  any  virtue  from  St.  Peter 
to  account  for  the  enormity  of  spiritual  despotism. 

7.  Wickedness  in  this  line  forfeits  the  claim  of  apostolic 
virtue:  a  vicious  man  cannot  be  a  lawful  bishop,  even  of 
Rome.  If  there  be  one  fundamental  canon  of  the  min- 
istry more  sacred  than  another,  it  is  forfeiture  of  function 
for  immorality.  The  Church  that  will  not  enforce  the 
penalty  and  estop  the  tradition  just  there  must  be  cast 
away  and  her  succession  doomed,  like  that  of  Thyatira. 
All  men  must  know  that  immoral  men  are  integral  links 
of  this  ecclesiastical  chain  at  Rome — not  thereby  un- 
churching Latin  Christianity,  but  assuredly  interrupt- 


OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.  171 

ing  saiutship  and  makiug  spurious  the  ordinations  from 
such  polluted  hands,  wherever,  at  least,  "committing" 
to  faithful  and  able  men  is  held  to  be  the  communication 
of  something  which  one  man  has,  and  another  has  not, 
of  spiritual  gift.  Even  after  civilization  and  letters  had 
redeemed  the  people  from  torpor  and  death  a  debauched 
Alexander,  a  bloody  Julius  and  an  atheistic  Leo,  in 
almost  immediate  succession  to  one  another,  carried  on 
the  line. 

8.  The  impossibility  of  tracing  this  line.  Not  to 
dwell  on  the  embarrassment  which  irregular  elections 
and  violent  expulsions  and  simoniacal  bargains  and 
acrimonious  divisions  and  protestation  of  councils  have 
occasioned  the  canon  law  in  folios  of  doubt  which  fill 
the  shelves  of  the  Vatican,  let  us  take  the  most  reason- 
able and  simple  of  all  methods — bring  the  opposite  ends 
of  the  line  together  and  judge  of  its  genuine  continuity. 
When  it  began  the  people  elected  the  bishop  of  Rome 
and  fellow-presbyters  laid  on  their  hands  in  ordination. 
Now  a  few  cardinals  of  scarlet  hat  and  purpled  mantle 
choose  him  in  a  conclave,  and  more  than  the  ceremony 
of  kingly  coronation  must  be  had  for  his  inauguration. 
At  first  the  husband  of  one  wife,  having  faithful  chil- 
dren, a  man  not  self-willed,  not  soon  angry,  not  given  to 
filthy  lucre,  a  lover  of  good  men,  sober,  just,  holy,  tem- 
perate, was  the  man  qualified  for  that  pastorate,  guid- 
ing the  flock,  confessing  Christ  and  taking  the  martyr's 
crown.  Now  a  withered  ascetic,  forbidding  to  marry, 
having  children  like  Csesar  Borgia,  if  any,  whose  self- 
will  is  infallibility  itself,  angered  at  every  change  of 
politics  and  the  shadow  of  indifference  to  his  own  pre- 
rogatives, draining  the  wealth  of  kingdoms  to  fill  his 
insatiable  coffers,  a  persecuting  enemy  to  good  men  who 


172  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

think  for  themselves,  intolerant,  unjust  and  depraved  to 
any  extent  his  habits  may  lead  him, — this  is  the  man  if 
he  is  a  native  Italian  and  not  refused  by  France  and 
Spain.  Between  such  characters  who  can  run  a  line  or 
believe  that  the  primitive  and  the  modern  incumbent 
are  in  the  same  continuity  of  ordination  and  possessing 
the  same  credibility  as  witnesses  for  Christ  and  "  gov- 
ernments" for  the  Church? 

Thus  it  is  evident  that  the  tripartite  fabric  of  papal 
usurpation  cannot  stand  the  test  of  either  Scripture  or 
history.  Peter  had  no  primacy  conferred  on  him ;  and 
if  he  had,  it  could  not  have  been  transmitted,  and  if 
transmitted  anywhere  it  cannot  be  identified  in  the  suc- 
cession of  pontificates  at  Rome.  But,  whilst  we  thus 
reject  the  whole  structure  of  papal  supremacy  and  the 
sacerdotal  ministration  it  claims,  the  people  under  such 
a  yoke  are  not  to  be  unchurched  with  wholesale  derelic- 
tion. Myriads  have  found  salvation  beneath  the  pall  of 
popish  night  because  of  grace  abounding,  and  how  far 
the  alchemy  of  saving  grace  will  extract  sweetness  from 
the  carcass  of  rotten  superstition  and  cunning  priest- 
craft God  only  knows.  There  is  "  nothing  too  hard  for 
the  Lord ;"  let  ours  be  the  task  of  restoring  a  different 
system,  which  will  open  the  facilities  of  being  saved, 
and  saved  well,  "  to  the  uttermost,"  and  yet  a  system 
old  as  the  call  and  the  covenant  of  Abraham. 


CHAPTEE  VII. 

PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION. 

THE  great  Reformatiou  from  popery  was  arrested  in 
both  of  its  main  branches,  Lutheran  and  Reformed, 
at  the  reconstruction  of  a  ransomed  Church,  by  the  jeal- 
ousies of  civil  monarchy.  The  affinity  of  thrones  to 
hierarchy  is  natural  and  historical  because  of  the  mutual 
support  they  are  seen  to  afford  each  other,  and  especially 
where  Church  and  State  are  united  in  constitution.  Yet 
the  concession  made  by  Reformers  to  gradations  of  rank 
in  the  government  of  the  Church  was  merely  political 
in  its  nature,  without  the  slightest  claim  of  divine  right 
or  scriptural  sanction  for  hierarchy  in  Sweden,  Denmark 
or  England,  Cranmer,  archbishop  of  Canterbury — 
called  bv  historians  "founder  of  the  English  Church" 
— is  said  to  have  tendered  the  resignation  of  his  office 
at  the  demise  of  his  king,  so  much  did  he  consider  the 
primacy  of  England  a  political  promotion  rather  than 
apostolical  heritage.  All  the  British  Reformers  viewed 
Anglican  prelacy  in  the  same  light — as  a  civil  more 
than  as  a  religious  polity — until  near  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Then,  after  Richard  Bancroft  (arch- 
bishop of  Canterbury,  1604)  preached  the  divine  right  of 
bishops  against  the  validity  of  Genevan,  Dutch,  Scotch 
and  French  orders  and  wherever  only  one  order  of  the 
ministry  was  held,  and  almost  simultaneously  with  this 

173 


174  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

departure  Thomas  Cartwright  was  ejected  from  his  pro- 
fessorship at  Cambridge  for  opposition  to  three  orders 
and  the  Liturgy,  with  his  known  authorship  of  the 
"  Martin-Mar-Prelate  "  literature,  Presbyterianisra  was 
unchurched,  and  the  course  of  prelacy  from  its  original 
basis  of  political  expedience  had  henceforth  to  lodge 
itself  in  papal  glossology  and  call  its  highest  order 
apostolical. 

We  may  well  wonder  that  the  enlightened  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  of  England  and  America,  as  it  con- 
tinues the  style  and  exclusiveness  of  Bancroft,  could 
overlook  the  mission  of  apostles  to  bear  witness  for 
Christ,  and  not  to  rule  at  all  except  as  it  is  merely 
incidental  and  subservient  to  preaching  the  gospel,  and 
that  our  missionaries  to  the  heathen,  at  home  and  abroad, 
are  the  most  apostolic  of  all  modern  ministers.  The 
kevs  of  the  kingdom  were  indeed  committed  to  all  the 
apostles  alike,  but  it  was  expressly  for  the  purpose  of 
"opening  and  shutting" — bringing  in  and  adding  to 
the  Church  (already  organized)  "  such  as  should  be 
saved "  by  means  of  their  testimony,  and  shutting  out 
the  false,  ignorant  and  immoral  by  the  exercise  of  that 
discipline  which  consisted  in  the  application  of  the  word 
to  the  offences  of  men,  and  in  which  they  called  upon 
the  people  to  assist  them  and  do  it  themselves  in  the 
absence  of  the  apostles,  as  Paul  authorized  the  Co- 
rinthians to  do.  Power  was  a  reserve  in  their  Head 
himself,  and  the  streams  of  mission  among  men  must 
never  make  a  reservoir  in  men  themselves  :  "  All  power 
is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Go  ye  there- 
fore, and  teach  all  nations." 

But  let  us  examine  the  claims  of  this  peculiar  kind 
of  apostolic  succession,  which,  excluding  Peter's  primacy 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSTON.  175 

and  its  transmission  in  but  one  line,  holds  the  supe- 
riority of  diocesan  bishops  over  presbyters  as  an  apos- 
tolic emanation,  and  the  transmission  of  it  in  historical 
lines  when  it  is  old,  and  the  origination  of  it  in  some 
house  of  bishops  or  l)y  the  authority  of  an  archbishop 
when  it  is  new.  Much  as  this  claim  seems  to  possess  of 
plausibility  over  the  Romish,  it  is  forlorn,  comparatively, 
in  the  array  of  its  defenders.  The  service  it  does  to  Rome, 
running  with  her  on  one  line  before  the  Reformation,  is 
not  reciprocated.  "You  Presbyterians,"  said  Arch- 
bishop Magee,  "  have  religion  without  a  Church  ;  they 
(the  papists)  have  a  Church  without  religion."  But  Car- 
dinal Bellarmine  had  anticipated  the  sarcastic  epigram 
by  saying,  "  Bishops  have  no  part  of  the  true  apostolic 
authority.  Apostles  could  preach  and  found  cluirches 
in  every  part  of  the  w^orld ;  bishops  cannot  do  this. 
Apostles  could  write  canonical  epistles ;  bishops  cannot 
do  this.  Apostles  had  the  gift  of  tongues  and  the 
power  of  working  miracles;  this  does  not  belong  to 
bishops.  Apostles  had  jurisdiction  over  the  whole 
Church ;  this  is  not  possessed  by  the  bishops.  There- 
fore, bisliops  can  have  no  part  of  the  true  apostolic 
office."  Coinciding  for  once  with  Bellarmine,  we  would 
argue  against  the  prelatical  pretension — 

I.  The  impossibility  of  identifying  in  these  modern 
claimants  any  one,  and  much  more  the  assemblage,  of 
qualifications  specified  in  Scripture  as  necessary  to  the 
office  of  apostle.  With  this  absolute  want  we  must 
connect  the  end  of  that  great  office — to  bear  witness 
among  all  nations  of  what  they  had  seen  and  heard  in 
their  companionship  with  Jesus.  Power  apart  from 
testimony  M'as  never  exercised  by  the  original  twelve 
unless  it  was   in   common  with   other  disciples — evan- 


176  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

gelists,  prophets,  elders,  deacons,  and  even  "servants 
and  handmaids,"  who  were  endued  with  power  from 
on  high  at  the  time  of  Pentecost.  Yet  that  power 
was  not  governmental  at  all,  but  demonstrative,  as 
evidence  to  corroborate  the  witnessing  errand  to  which 
the  newly-nascent  Church  of  Christianity  was  univer- 
sally committed.  When  Matthias  was  elected  in  the 
place  of  Judas,  the  remarkable  speech  of  Peter  to  the 
voters  explaining  the  occasion,  the  necessity  and  the 
fitness  of  the  disciple  to  be  chosen  by  the  assembly  of 
"about  one  hundred  and  twenty"  did  not  hint  in  one 
syllable  that  upon  himself  as  an  apostle  rested,  in  any 
manner,  the  responsibility  of  organizing,  directing  or 
superintending  the  Church  or  the  incipiency  of  the 
Church  at  that  time.  Every  word  he  uttered  bore 
upon  the  qualifications  and  need  of  another  witness, 
converging  at  the  close  in  these  pregnant  words :  "Must 
one  be  ordained  to  be  a  witness  with  us  of  his  resurrec- 
tion." Yet,  strangely  enough,  the  succession  of  Mat- 
thias to  Judas,  we  are  now  told,  is  an  instance  of  apos- 
tolical succession  in  the  line  of  paramount  authority  and 
government  of  the  Church  !  Judas  had  never  filled 
the  office  of  apostle ;  though  nominated  with  the  others 
and  privileged  to  receive  the  instruction  of  our  Lord, 
he  fell  and  went  "  to  his  own  place "  before  the  ap- 
pointed season  came  to  be  sent  forth  as  a  witness.  The 
filling  of  a  vacancy  in  such  circumstances  could  not  be 
succession  to  an  office.  Besides,  Matthias  had  the  in- 
transmissible qualifications  of  other  apostles,  one  of 
which,  at  least,  Judas  did  not  possess :  "  Witness  with 
us  of  his  resurrection."  And,  still  more,  no  modern 
claimant  is  chosen  by  the  promiscuous  ballot  of  a  whole 
assembly  of  disciples,  as  Matthias  was.     Official  succes- 


PRELATWAL  SUCCESSION.  177 

sion  and  popular  suffrage  do  not  go  together  in  any 
gradation  of  hierarchical  systems  as  it  was  in  the  choice 
of  a  primitive  bishop.  King  James's  translators  call  the 
position  from  which  the  apostate  fell  "a  bishoprick." 
Acts  i.  20.  But  why  did  they  not  call  it  "deaconship," 
as  the  original  word  signifies  in  the  seventeenth  verse, 
which  they  translate  by  the  general  term  "  ministry  "  ? 
Prelacy  is  not  fond,  however,  of  making  Judas  iiead  of 
a  line.  Bishop  Gleig  says  he  was  a  presbyter ;  Arch- 
bishop Potter  says  he  was  a  deacon  ;  and  it  must  be  a 
polemical  strait  which  would  begin  the  only  apparent 
succession  in  the  Bible  with  the  first  of  traitors  and 
apostates  at  the  head  of  a  line. 

Another  fact — indicating,  at  feast,  an  extension  be- 
yond "the  twelve,"  and  therefore,  it  is  claimed,  an  in- 
definite multiplication  of  predecessors  and  lines  of  apos- 
tolical superiors  in  riding  the  Church — is  the  calling  of 
Paul  to  apostleship.  But  why  may  we  not  rather  sup- 
pose that  Paul  was  chosen  to  fill  a  vacancy,  as  Matthias 
had  been,  and  this  vacancy  was  occasioned  by  the  death 
of  James,  the  son  of  Zebedee,  who  did  not  live  to  make 
"  full  proof"  of  his  ministry  as  an  apostle  ?  Besides, 
this  great  apostle  gives  us  to  understand  that  his  calling 
was  exceptional :  "Born  out  of  due  time,  and  not  meet 
to  be  called  an  apostle,"  "  Less  than  the  least  of  all 
saints,"  etc.  The  emphasis  with  which  he  notices  the 
anomaly  of  his  own  vocation  surely  indicates  that  the 
office  was  not  ordinarily  extended  nor  transmitted. 
Moreover,  he  also,  and  even  pre-eminently  in  some 
respects,  possessed  the  intransmissible  qualifications  of 
"the  twelve,"  and  it  is  remarkable  that  this  junior 
apostle  "  not  meet  to  be  called  "  one  figures  the  most  in 
church  government:  "So  ordain  T,  in  all  the  churclios." 

12 


178  CHURCH  OOVEENMENT. 

With  him  coDScious  inferiority  was  a  conscious  call  to 
govern,  organize  and  dictate  pastoral  epistles  for  in- 
struction and  guidance  of  ministers  and  people.  The 
relative  inferiority  of  governing  to  preaching  is  thus 
indicated  with  peculiar  significance,  and  consequently 
"  governments "  should  inherit  for  ever  a  subordinate 
place  in  apostolic  evangelism. 

Still  another  fact  urged  for  the  extension  of  the  orig- 
inal band  is  that  Barnabas,  with  Paul,  is  called  an  apostle 
in  Acts  xiv.  4,  14,  where  the  denomination  is  plural — 
"  apostles."  This  is  the  only  instance  of  the  title  given 
to  Barnabas,  even  by  impliaition,  whilst  Paul  is  dis- 
tinctly called  "apostle"  seventeen  times,  and  the  twelve 
collectively  fifty-four  times,  in  Scripture.  This  might 
fairly  raise  the  presumption  that  Barnabas  is  so  called 
because  of  his  association  with  Paul  in  being  sent  from 
Antioch  on  a  special  mission,  the  full  record  of  which 
is  found  in  Acts  xiii.,  xiv.  Indeed,  both  seem  to  have 
been  sent  from  a  Presbytery  at  Antioch  by  special 
direction  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  with  the  ceremony 
of  ordination,  fasting,  prayer  and  the  laying  on  of 
hands — altogether  anomalous  in  the  case  of  an  apostle 
unless  the  word  be  taken  in  the  secondary  sense  of  an 
ordinary  minister,  a  religious  messenger,  as  it  undoubt- 
edly means  in  2  Cor.  viii.  23.  Paul  was  just  as  willing 
to  be  called  '^a  messenger  of  Christ"  with  Barnabas  as 
Peter  and  John  were  willing  to  call  themselves  "elders." 
Cave  conjectures  well  that  Barnabas  had  been  one  of 
the  seventy  sent  out  to  herald  the  ministry  of  our  Lord 
wherever  he  purposed  to  go  throughout  the  country, 
and  therefore  possessed  the  miraculous  powers  of  that 
asre,  as  well  as  Paul,  which  even  from  that  secondary 
meaning  of  "  apostle  "  could  not  be  transmitted  to  sue- 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  179 

ceeding  generatioDs.  Take  all  the  persons  called  by 
this  name  in  any  one  of  its  three  senses,  technical,  offi- 
cial or  appellative — take  Timothy,  Silas,  Epaphroditus, 
Andronicus  and  Junia,  as  well  as  the  certain  brethren 
who  accompanied  Titus  to  Corinth — and  say  they  were 
all  apostles  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  great  office,  and 
they  can  have  no  successors  now  in  the  "signs  of  an 
apostle,"  "  wonders  and  mighty  deeds,"  to  attest  the 
dignity  of  such  inheritance. 

We  are  met  again  by  the  same  begging  of  the  question 
in  regard  to  the  true  sense  of  the  word  "apostle"  where 
the  application  of  it  is  doubtful  at  all.  Thus,  in  1 
Thessaloniaus,  at  the  beginning,  we  read,  "  Paul  and 
Silvanus  and  Timotheus,  unto  the  church  of  the  Thes- 
saloniaus," and  then,  reading  on  to  the  sixth  verse  of 
the  second  chapter,  we  read  there,  "  Nor  of  men  sought 
we  glory,  neither  of  you,  nor  yet  of  others,  when  we 
might  have  been  burdensome,  as  the  apostles  of  Christ." 
Here,  it  is  alleged,  is  a  manifest  application  of  the  name 
"apostles"  to  Silas  and  Timothy,  as  well  as  to  Paul 
himself.  But  is  everything  said  in  the  body  of  an 
epistle  to  be  applied  alike  to  each  one  mentioned  in  the 
form  of  salutation,  either  at  the  beginning  or  at  the  end 
of  a  letter?  And  even  here,  on  such  assumption,  we 
must  include  with  Paul  both  Silas  and  Timothy  in  the 
maltreatment  of  Paul  at  Philippi  (Acts  xvi.  22),  which 
was  not  a  fact  in  the  case  of  Timothy.  The  use  of  "we" 
interchangeably  with  "  I "  is  familiar  in  the  diction  of 
Paul,  as  we  see  in  this  very  connection  (1  Thess.  ii.  18) : 
"  Wherefore,  we  would  have  come  unto  you,  even  I 
Paul,  once  and  again;  but  Satan  hindered  us."  And 
then,  passing  on  to  the  third  chapter,  first  verse,  he 
says,  "  When  we  could  no  longer  for'  ear,"  and,  verse  5, 


180  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

"  When  I  could  no  longer  forbear,"  in  reference  to  the 
very  same  thing.  It  should  be  noticed  also  here  that 
the  particle  "as"  itself  makes  the  application  of  the 
term  "apostles"  to  Silas  and  Timothy  doubtful  in  the 
sense,  and  the  expression  may  mean,  "  We  might  have 
been  burdensome  as  the  apostles  of  Christ "  have  a  right 
to  he,  thus  reducing  it  again  to  the  secondary  sense  of 
ministers  or  messengers  of  Christ  in  general. 

Another  instance  of  dojLibtful  application  is  in  Rom. 
xvi.  7,  where  Andronicus  and  Junia  are  said  to  be  "  of 
note  among  the  apostles  " — that  is,  in  grammatical  con- 
struction either  they  were  quite  renowned  as  apostles  or 
they  were  held  in  high  esteem  among  the  apostles  for 
their  zeal,  intelligence  and  liberal  hospitality;  and  bibli- 
cal history  demands  the  latter  construction,  beyond  a 
doubt.  Thus  we  see  how  vain,  and  even  frivolous, 
must  be  the  play  upon  words — names  which  have  a 
double,  and  even  triple,  sense  often  in  Scripture — to 
widen  a  basis  for  the  derivation  of  apostolical  virtue 
to  the  succession  of  the  highest  in  three  orders  of  the 
ministry  as  maintained  in  the  gradations  of  modern 
prelacy.  The  pretension  which  would  extend  the  orig- 
inal number  of  apostles  in  order  to  make  it  descend 
with  apostolical  succession  excludes  this  one  Greek  name 
of  office  from  the  principles  of  interpretation  and  com- 
mon sense  which  apply  to  all  other  names  of  office — 
deacon,  elder,  etc.  It  makes  every  messenger  like 
Epaphroditus  equal  to  Paul  in  dignity,  and  every 
deacon  equal  to  him  in  the  ministry,  and  every  old 
man  a  presbyter  equal  to  John  and  Peter. 

II.  The  original  and  only  band  of  apostles  that  ever 
existed,  or  can  exist,  in  the  Church  of  Christ  appear 
always  in  Scripture  liistory  as  a  distinct  body  of  men. 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  181 

unique,  well  defined  and  strongly  marked,  making  on 
the  mind  of  an  unsophisticated  reader  the  conviction 
that  they  were  a  temporary  institution.  In  sacred  his- 
tory they  are  like  a  constituent  assembly,  or  convention 
of  the  people  to  form  a  constitution  or  to  recognize  a 
good  constitution,  in  whole  or  in  part,  already  formed, 
and  then  give  place  to  representatives  of  the  people  in 
legislative,  judicial  and  executive  power  to  carry  on  the 
government  they  have  sanctioned.  Who  does  not  think 
of  the  apostles  as  a  temporary  order  already  off  the  stage 
or  just  departing  when  he  reads  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  verses  of  Jude :  "  But,  beloved,  remember 
ye  the  words  which  were  spoken  before  of  the  apos- 
tles of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ ;  how  that  they  told  you 
there  should  be  mockers  in  the  last  time,  who  should 
walk  after  their  own  ungodly  lusts"?  or  that  sublime 
apostrophe  in  Rev.  xviii.  20  :  "  Rejoice  over  her,  thou 
heaven,  and  ye  holy  apostles  and  prophets,  for  God 
hath  avenged  you  on  her"?  (See  also  Rev.  xxi.  14, 
where  we  have  "  the  twelve  apostles  of  the  Lamb " 
inscribed  on  twelve  foundations  in  the  heavenly  Jeru- 
salem.) There  is  in  such  passages  a  style  of  definite 
allusion  which  manifestly  precludes  the  indefinite  ex- 
tension and  succession  of  the  apostolic  office,  and  it  is 
absurd  to  suppose  that  the  primitive  Church  would 
have  been  so  indifferent  to  such  a  succession  as  to  take 
elders  universally  for  governor  and  compel  the  old 
Jewish  hierarchy  to  creep  back  again  by  degrees  after 
centuries  of  suppression,  during  which,  according  to 
Irenseus  and  many  others,  the  succession  was  carried 
on  through  elders. 

It  will  not  avail  the  advocates  of  apostolical  succes- 
sion in  prelacy  to  cite  2  Cor.  xi.  13  and   Rev.  ii.  2 


182  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

against  the  palpable  facts  of  history.  The  former  quo- 
tatiou  is,  "  For  such  are  false  apostles,  deceitful  workers, 
transforming  themselves  into  the  apostles  of  Christ," 
and  the  latter  thus  :  "  Thou  hast  tried  them  which  say 
they  are  apostles,  and  are  not,  and  hast  found  them 
liars."  How  could  there  be  pretenders,  it  is  asked, 
if  no  genuine  apostolic  successors  were  in  existence? 
This  argument  is  another  begging  of  the  question  in 
regard  to  the  meaning  of  the  word  "  apostle,"  affirming 
of  the  thing  that  is  to  be  proved  that  it  is  to  be  taken 
only  in  the  first  of  three  distinct  senses  in  which  it  is 
used  by  Holy  Writ.  We  affirm  with  exegetical  justice 
that  there  were  in  the  field  just  then  genuine  apostles 
abundantly  as  the  word  is  found  in  2  Cor.  viii.  23 : 
"  Or  our  brethren  be  enquired  of,  they  are  the  messen- 
gers [apostles]  of  the  churches,  and  the  glory  of  Christ." 
All  our  parochial  bishops,  all  our  missionary  ministers, 
all  our  teaching  elders,  are  apostles  in  the  sense  of 
Christian  "  messengers "  according  to  the  translation 
made  at  first,  and  recently  made  again,  by  Protestant 
Episcopalian  scholars. 

But,  even  yielding  to  the  beggarly  argument  this 
point,  we  may  well  say  that  the  existence  of  false 
apostles,  in  any  sense  of  the  word,  does  not  imply 
necessarily  the  existence  of  true  apostles  in  the  same 
sense  at  the  same  time:  it  implies  no  more  than  that  the 
true  existed  at  some  time.  Fanatics  have  appeared  in 
every  age  pretending  to  visions  and  revelations,  and 
even  to  gift  of  tongues  and  working  of  miracles,  and 
claiming  a  commission  to  go  forth  as  religious  ambas- 
sadors to  all  nations.  We  may  call  such  "  false  apos- 
tles" now  without  meaning  at  all  that  the  original 
"twelve"  are  now  in  the  field  on  their  lineal  descent 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSIOX.  183 

among  the  dignitaries  of  Christendom.  The  apostle 
John  was  then  living,  and  these  false  apostles  might 
have  been  counterfeit  elders  pretending  to  be  messen- 
gers (apostles)  sent  by  him,  or  they  may  have  been 
adversaries  to  John,  like  "Diotrephes,  who  loveth  to 
have  the  pre-eminence  among  them/'  and  would  not 
receive  messages  from  the  venerable  exile  in  Patmos. 
3  John  9.  "  To  have  the  pre-eminence  among  them  " 
was  always  illicit,  alien  and  reprehensible  under  the 
mastery  of  Jesus  himself  and  under  all  his  true  disciples 
who  should  afterward  encounter  this  baleful  ambition 
through  the  ages. 

"The  pre-eminence"  we  combat  now  has  still  another 
petitio  principil  with  which  it  would  blur  the  finish  of 
the  apostolical  order  in  the  original  twelve.  The  angels 
of  the  seven  churches  (Rev.  ii.,  iii.),  it  is  claimed,  must 
have  been  diocesan  bishops  of  the  respective  churches, 
presiding  over  and  representing  these  to  God  and  men. 
This  bald  assertion  has  no  plausibility  whatever  to  com- 
mend it.  Like  dTrdaTo^.o;;,  the  word  d^yysAoc  ("  angel ") 
has  three  distinct  senses  in  Scripture,  the  highest  mean- 
ing a  spiritual  order  of  beings  above  mankind,  and  in  a 
special  way  applied  to  Christ  himself;  an  intermediate 
sense  of  religious  messengers,  applied  by  our  Lord  to 
John  the  Baptist ;  and  the  common  appellative  sense  of 
messengers  merely — occurring  most  frequently,  and  often 
in  miscellaneous  agencies,  good  and  bad,  material  and 
immaterial — to  execute  the  purposes  and  the  judgments 
of  God.  As  there  was  in  the  old  ecclesia  continued  bv 
Christ  and  his  apostles  in  their  ministry  an  angel  of  the 
synagogue  delegated  by  foreign  synagogues  to  represent 
them  at  Jerusalem,  so  it  was  natural,  if  not  inevitable, 
that  the  name  and  the  office  would  pass  on  to  the  Chris- 


184  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tian  Church  of  the  future;  and  the  fact  of  its  use  iu  this 
connection  is  another  beautiful  indication  of  the  per- 
petuity with  which  our  divine  Head  connects  one  dis- 
pensation with  another  by  a  living  institute  as  well  as  by 
an  inspired  book.  Whatever  may  be  the  precise  mean- 
ing of  the  metaphor,  it  is  certainly  not  ruling  over  the 
Church,  but  some  function  of  missionary  evangelism  iu 
teaching  and  preaching;  for  in  the  fourteenth  chapter 
and  sixth  verse  of  Revelation  we  read,  "  I  saw  an- 
other angel  fly  in  "the  midst  of  heaven,  having  the  ever- 
lasting gospel  to  preach  unto  them  that  dwell  on  the 
earth,  and  to  every  nation  and  kindred  and  tongue  and 
people."  Scripture  is  the  best  interpreter  of  Scripture ; 
and  the  seven  angels  must  be,  therefore,  seven  preachers, 
and  not  seven  prelates.  They  were  simply  pastors  or 
parochial  bishops,  presbyters,  with  oversight  of  their 
respective  pastoral  charges,  iu  which  sense  alone  they 
were  Episcopalians.  Or  we  may  take  each  of  those 
angels  iu  the  collective  sense  and  consider  it  personated 
in  the  clerk  of  a  Presbytery  of  greater  or  less  propor- 
tion, to  whom  letters  and  messages  would  be  sent  for 
the  body  he  served.  Or  we  may  go  down  to  the  simple 
adjective  sense  of  the  word,  and  with  Dr.  Killeu  sup- 
pose they  were  messengers  merely  of  the  seven  churches 
respectively,  who  were  sent  to  the  apostle  John  with 
presents  for  his  necessities  in  the  rocky  and  sterile  island 
of  Patmos,  and  received  in  return  the  messages  of  reve- 
lation for  the  churches  they  severally  represented.  Or  we 
may  ascend  to  the  highest  conceivable  sense  of  the  word 
as  a  name  for  any  creature,  and  may  suppose,  with  Dr. 
J.  Addison  Alexander,  that,  inasmuch  as  the  Apocalypse 
resembles  the  prophecies  of  Daniel  so  much,  the  term 
hero  may  mean  the  guardian  angel  of  each  church  or 


PRKLATICAL  SUCCESSION.  185 

community  of  churches  addressed  in  the  visions  of" 
John.*  Any  one  of  these  interpretations  is  colored 
with  fair  probability  compared  with  the  utterly  unsup- 
ported assertion  of  prelacy  that  the  angels  must  have 
been  diocesan  bishops. 

Bishop  Mcllvaine  exulted  in  what  he  considered  a 
demonstration  of  this  when  he  quotes  Ignatius,  of  the 
second  century,  who  had  conversed  with  John  the  apos- 
tle, and  who  some  twelve  years  after  the  Apocalypse 
was  written  said  in  a  letter  to  the  church  of  Ephesus 
that  Ouesimus  was  their  bishop.  Now,  inasmuch  as 
the  church  of  Ephesus  undoubtedly  had  a  plurality  of 
elders,  as  we  see  in  Acts  xx.,  where  Paul  sent  for  them 
to  meet  him  at  Miletus,  and  inasmuch  as  the  collective 
term  "  church  "  is  used  by  Ignatius,  the  person  denom- 
inated "angel"  in  the  Revelation  must  have  had  a 
superintending  dignity  at  Ephesus  such  as  Paul  had 
exercised  over  those  elders,  and  therefore  the  said  Ones- 
imus  had  in  him  the  apostolical  succession.  But  this 
argument  takes  for  granted,  again,  the  very  thing  to  be 
proved — that  "  bishop  "  and  "  angel  "  are  identical,  and 
that  the  plurality  of  elders  mentioned  in  Acts  xx.  were 
teaching,  and  not  ruling,  elders,  and  that,  if  teaching 
elders,  they  were  all  from  the  city  of  Epliesus,  and  not 
from  the  adjacent  region  also  round  about  it,  and  if  all 
from  one  city  and  centre  that  the  plurality  had  not  been 
reduced  to  a  single  pastor  in  the  time  of  that  Onesimus. 
The  tangle  of  these  previous  questions  puzzled  Bishop 
Onderdonk  himself,  who,  though  less  renowned  for 
piety  than  his  brother  in  Ohio,  was  quite  his  equal  in 
acuteness.     Both  these  erudite  and  able  men  admitted 

*  This  interpretation  of  "  angel "  seems  to  be  preferred  by  Dr, 
Lightfoot,  bishop  of  Durham,  in  his  book  on  Philippians,  p.  200. 


186  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

that  "  bishop  "  and  "  presbyter  "  were  the  same  in  Holy 
Scripture  and  used  convertibly  there,  and  the  difficulty 
which  exercised  both  on  the  subject  of  these  angels  in 
Revelation  was  why  the  superintending  authority  in  the 
Church  should  be  called  "  angel "  here,  and  not  "  apos- 
tle "  or  "  bishop."  Bishop  Onderdonk  solves  it  in  this 
way:  ''The  name  'bishop'  was  in  transitu  just  then 
from  the  second  order  to  the  first ;  the  former  title  of 
'apostle'  was  losing,  or  beginning  to  lose,  its  more 
general  application,  and  the  latter,  'bishop,'  had  not  yet 
acquired  its  final  appropriation."  "The  dignitaries  in 
question  were  addressed  when  it  was  somewhat  too  late 
to  call  them  apostles  and  somewhat  too  soon  to  call  them 
hisliops."  Such  a  dodge  of  mere  assertion  may  be  left 
to  answer  itself  as  a  specimen  of  logic  in  support  of 
apostolic  succession  according  to  prelacy. 

Along  with  the  "  demonstration "  of  Bishop  Mcll- 
vaine  and  the  clearing  of  its  difficulty  by  Bishop  Onder- 
donk we  may  range  an  incident  in  Presbyterian  history. 
At  the  General  Assembly  met  in  Pittsburg  in  1849  a 
commissioner  from  the  Presbytery  of  New  York,  Dr. 
Phillips,  handed  to  the  clerk,  at  the  opening,  his  cer- 
tificate in  the  usual  form,  stating  that  he  was  "bishop 
of  the  First  Presbyterian  Church,  New  York."  In 
the  memory  of  several  members  of  that  Assembly  the 
same  First  Church  had  early  in  the  century  three  paro- 
chial bishops  in  a  collegiate  arrangement,  officiating  in 
three  different  places  of  the  same  organization.  These 
facts  going  down  historically  with  the  name  "  bishop  " 
in  our  standard  prescribed  in  the  formula  of  commis- 
sion, and  our  Protestant  Episcopalian  brethren,  admit- 
ting no  one  to  be  called  "  bishop  "  any  more  in  the  true 
scriptural  use  of  the  title,  might  exclaim,  half  a  ceu- 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  187 

tury  hence,  that  Dr.  Phillips  must  have  been  a  veritable 
diocesan  having  a  considerable  portion  of  New  York 
for  his  oversight  and  other  ministers  for  his  suffragans. 
The  same  kind  of  process  which  in  New  York  set  off 
from  time  to  time  the  Brick  Church  and  the  Rutgers 
Street  Church  into  separate  organizations,  and  one  pastor 
for  each,  may  have  reduced  the  plurality  of  presbyters 
in  the  time  of  Paul  distributed  through  Ephesus  and 
its  vicinity  to  one  pastor  in  the  city  itself,  called  by 
Ignatius  "  Onesimus,"  accepting  the  statement  as  genu- 
ine and  as  no  part  of  the  pseudo-Ignatian  literature 
which  is  so  abundant. 

Historical   Failure  of  Apostolic  Rank  in 

Prelacy. 

Til.  Other  primitive  offices  of  great  importance  in 
the  Church  are  confessedly  discontinued — the  office  of 
prophet,  for  example,  and  that  of  evangelist  as  the 
latter  was  exercised  in  the  apostolical  age.  When  the 
prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament  had  been  expounded 
with  sufficient  clearness  to  the  primitive  Christians  and 
all  the  predictions  needed  to  sustain  and  comfort  the 
New-Testament  church  had  been  uttered  and  recorded, 
and  when  the  foundations  of  the  Church  had  been  laid 
and  confirmed  by  apostolic  aids  and  legates,  the  prophets 
and  evangelists  of  the  Pentecostal  period  were  with- 
drawn as  having  finished  their  work.  And  why  should 
not  the  apostolic  office  itself,  which  in  its  nature,  end  and 
the  exigencies  that  brought  it  on  the  stage  Avas  the  most 
extraordinary  and  transient  of  all,  be  considered  as  past 
altogether  when  its  testimony  had  been  given  to  the 
accessible  nations  and  its  constructive  skill  and  authority 
had  linked  the  ecclesia  of  the  New  to  the  Old  Testa- 


188  CHURCH  OOVERNMENT. 

ment  dispensation  by  the  ordination  of  '■  elders  in  every 
church,"  transmuting  to  a  Christian  character  the  He- 
brew synagogue,  oratory  and  school  of  the  prophets? 
The  Church  needed  no  express  declaration  of  God  that 
this  office  had  ceased  when  this  work  was  done.  No 
such  declaration  was  needed  to  convince  the  children  of 
Israel  that  the  office  of  Moses  and  Joshua  ceased  when 
they  were  ultimately  settled  in  Canaan,  or  that  the 
Urim  and  the  Thummim  ceased  to  direct  them  when 
responses  were  no  longer  obtained  from  the  breastplate 
of  Aaron.  No  revelation  was  needed  by  the  primitive 
Fathers  that  the  office  of  prophet  ceased  when  the 
apocalyptic  visions  of  John  were  authenticated,  nor 
that  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost  had  ceased  to 
indite  canonical  scriptures  when  the  fact  of  a  heavenly 
afflatus  could  be  recognized  no  longer.  And  why  should 
any  one  demand  an  express  declaration  that  the  office 
of  apostle  ceased  when  ministers  no  longer  saw  the 
person  of  Jesus  with  bodily  eye,  or  received  their  com- 
mission immediately  from  him,  or  performed  mighty 
deeds  to  the  senses  of  men,  or  swayed  paramount  au- 
thority wherever  they  carried  the  gospel? 

IV.  Early  history  presents  a  chasm  over  which  apos- 
tolical succession  cannot  pass.  The  term  "  apostle  "  had 
manifestly  ceased  to  be  used  in  its  highest  official  sense 
when  the  enraptured  hearers  of  Chrysostom  exclaimed, 
"  Thou  art  the  thirteenth  apostle !"  This  one  incident, 
among  a  thousand  more  which  might  be  cited,  shows 
incisively  that  the  ancient  Church  had  no  thought 
of  apostolical  succession  beyond  the  lives  of  the  original 
"  twelve,"  and  the  enlargement  or  continuance  by  a  sin- 
gle unit  was  only  the  extravagance  of  Oriental  hyperbole. 
"  Many,"   says    Eusebius,    "  were   called    '  apostles '   by 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  189 

way  of  imitation,"  which  would  not  liave  been  the  ease 
if  the  office  itself  had  been  transmitted.  Men  were  not 
called  "presbyters"  by  way  of  imitation.  Ambrose 
of  Milan,  speaking  of  the  most  eminent  and  revered 
ministers  of  his  day — although  it  was  a  time  of  much 
clerical  ambition  and  affectation  and  thoug-h  he  himself 
was  fond  of  titles,  having  been  a  civil  ruler — says,  "  They 
thought  it  not  decent  to  assume  to  themselves  the  name 
of 'apostles,'  but,  dividing  the  names,  they  left  to  pres- 
byters the  name  of  'presbytery,'  and  they  themselves 
were  called  '  bishop-.' "  A  pretension  which  imperial 
Christianity  itself  repudiated  is  certainly  incongruous  in 
this  age  and  this  country. 

But  along  with  these  intimations  that  it  was  indecent 
even  then  for  the  highest  dignities  to  affect  apostolic 
name  or  derivation  were  many  positive  declarations  that 
presbyters  succeeded  to  all  the  vacancies  left  by  the 
extraordinary  witnesses  "  whom  He  named  apostles." 
Ignatius  himself  said,  "  Presbyters  preside  in  the  place 
of  the  council  of  apostles;"  "Let  all  reverence  the 
presbyters  as  the  Sanhedrim  of  God,  and  as  the  college 
of  apostles ;"  "  See  that  ye  follow  presbyters  as  apos- 
tles." At  the  same  time,  and  later 'in  the  centuries,  it 
became  customary  to  call  "apostle"  any  prominent 
and  extraordinary  friend  of  the  Church  not  in  her 
ministry  at  all.  Thus,  Constantine  the  Great  and  his 
empress  Helen  are  called  d-oaroXoc  by  the  writers  of 
the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  and  so  were  eminent 
women  who  distinguished  their  fidelity  to  Christ  in 
times  of  persecution  and  missionarv  hazard.  Au^us- 
tine  and  Jerome  both  speak  of  four  kinds  of  apostles. 
In  the  first  rank  Jerome  puts  Moses  and  the  prophets, 
Paul  aiid  the  other  apostles ;  in  the  second  rank  he  puts 


190  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Joshua  the  son  of  Nun  ;  in  the  third  rank,  any  officers 
of  the  Church  regularlv  chosen  and  ordained  according; 
to  the  appointment  of  God  ;  and  in  the  fourth  rank 
such  as  come  into  the  ministry  of  their  own  will  with- 
out either  internal  or  external  call,  imposing  on  the 
people. 

Thus  we  might  easily  gather  from  all  patristic  litera- 
ture, beginning  with  the  Clements  of  Rome  and  Alex- 
andria and  through  the  Augustan  age  to  Theodoret  of 
the  fifth  century,  that  the  apostolic  ministry  was  em- 
phatically the  presbyters,  who,  when  made  overseers  of 
a  particular  flock,  were  called  "  bishops ;"  and  even  in 
them  it  was  by  accommodation  of  the  word  "apostle," 
which  after  the  twelve  departed  everywhere  descended 
to  its  appellative  significance  of  " one  sent"  and,  espe- 
cially in  the  ecclesia,  "a  religious  messenger  sent." 
This  remarkable  disuse  of  the  proper  name  "  apostle " 
is  conclusive  against  the  claim  of  modern  apostle-bishops 
to  inherit  the  rank  of  primitive  disciples  chosen  by  our 
Lord  to  bear  this  name,  because  it  was  not  the  character 
of  ancient  Christianity  so  to  intermit  or  abate  the  names 
which  had  been  consecrated  by  the  lips  of  our  Saviour. 
He  "called  unto  him  his  disciples,  and  of  them  he  cliose 
twelve,  whom  also  he  named  apostles."  Luke  vi.  13. 
No  wonder  that  even  in  the  fourth  century  aspirants  to 
dignity  and  superiority  in  the  Church  "  thought  it  not 
decent  to  assume  to  themselves  the  name  of  'apostles;'  " 
the  wonder  now  is  that  so  many  good  men  of  this  gen- 
eration covet  the  style  with  fond  complacency  and  eager 
assev^eration. 

V.  The  local  fixedness  of  a  bishop  precludes  the 
propriety  of  prefixing  the  name  of  "  apostle  "  or  "  apos- 
tolic" to  such  a  term.     "Diocesan"  is  a  better  adjective, 


PRELArrCAL  SUCCESSION.  191 

to  distinguish  it  from  the  "bishop"  of  tlie  Bible,  that 
is  parochial  and  convertible  with  '^  presbyter"  beyond  a 
question.     Besides  the    unaccountable  change  of  name 
is  the  marvel  of  a  great  transmutation  from  travelling 
over  all  countries,  for  the  testimony  of  Jesus  to  a  per- 
manent abode  in  one  place  must  be  explained   by  the 
assumption  of  apostolic  virtue  in  the  diocesan.     On  the 
true  theory  that  the  apostles  were  an  extraordinary  and 
transient  order  commissioned  to  bear  witness  for  Christ 
and  provide  for  the  infant  Church  a  ministry,  to  con- 
tinue their  testimony  in  localities  of  fixed  abode,  com- 
posed of  presbyters  or  bishops,  according  to  their  actual 
investment  or  not  with  pastoral  oversight,  all  is  natural 
and  intelligible  in  the  narrative  of  sacred  institutions; 
but  on  the  hypothesis  of  a  transmitted  apostolate  the 
sudden  identification  of   this  high  and  itinerant  order 
with  the  local  officers  which  sprung  from  their  hands 
in  ordaining  them  on  the  vote  of  any  particular  church, 
and  that  without  a  hint  of  such  condescension  in  Script- 
ure, must    be  for  ever  inexplicable.     ''As  well  might 
we  call  the  king  '  mayor  of  London  '  and  the  bishop  of 
London  Wicar  of   Pancras'  as  to  say  that  an  apostle 
M-as  bishop  of  some  particular  charge  committed  to  his 
care."     These  Avords  are  quoted  from  an  old   English 
bishop  who  denied  the  claim  of  prelacy  to  any  peculiar 
apostolicity. 

The  fable,  under  the  name  of  an  old  tradition,  to 
which  Bishop  Gleig  and  others  resort  for  an  explana- 
tion is  that  the  apostles,  after  the  ascension  of  our  Lord, 
divided  among  themselves  the  territories  of  the  inhab- 
ited world.  James  had  Judea,  Paul  had  Syria,  Peter 
had  Italy,  John  had  Asia  Minor,  Andrew  had  Scythia, 
Thomas  had   India,  and  so  every  one  of  the  original 


192  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

apostles  had  his  own  diocese.  Tlie  Bible  itself  is  brought 
to  bolster  the  story  (2  Cor.  x.  13):  "But  we  will  not 
boast  of  things  without  our  measure ;  but  according  to 
the  measure  of  the  rule,  which  God  hath  distributed  to 
us,  a  measure  to  reach  even  to  you."  The  measure 
mentioned  here,  it  is  said,  means  the  boundary  of  Paul's 
diocese.  If  so,  however,  it  spoils  the  beauty  of  the 
alleged  division,  for  in  the  sixteenth  verse  it  seems  clear 
that  Paul's  measure,  geographically,  would  be  pushed 
to  Corinth  and  the  regions  beyond,  and  it  actually  was 
pushed  to  the  centre  of  Italy,  and  perhaps  the  utmost 
boundary  of  the  West,  making  him,  according  to  the 
legend,  the  most  erratic  and  unscrupulous  intruder  that 
was  ever  called  by  a  prelatical  name.  Happily,  we  can 
refer  to  Episcopalians  themselves  for  a  better  interpreta- 
tion— that  the  "measure"  is  moral,  and  not  physical; 
agonistic,  and  not  geographical.  Dr.  Hammond  says, 
"The  allusion  is  to  the  Isthmian  games,  where  each 
racer  ran  within  two  white  lines  which  he  might  not 
transgress  either  right  or  left,  so  that  there  would  be  no 
jostle  of  each  other  in  the  course."  Such  lines  were 
the  apostle's  measure,  which  God  had  distributed,  not 
man,  nor  apostles  among  themselves,  though  doubtless 
they  were  agreed  to  respect  one  another's  calling — one  to 
"the  circumcision,"  as  Peter,  James  and  John  to  the 
Jews;  another  to  "the  uncircumcision,"  as  Paul — so 
that  no  one  would  interfere  with  another  and  build  on 
his  labors  in  traversing  the  globe.  The  measure  of 
each  apostle,  then,  would  allow  him  the  ends  of  the 
earth  for  his  goal,  provided  he  would  not  intrude 
into  another  man's  work  or  speed  on  his  own  with  rival 
ambition. 

The  onlv  historical  basis  on  which   the  fiction  of  a 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  193 

territorial  division  among  the  apostles  can  rest  is  a 
fragment  of  Hegesippus  quoted  by  Eiisebius,  which  says, 
that  "James  received  the  government  of  the  Church 
along  with  the  apostles."  The  acknowledged  inaccuracy 
of  this  fragment  in  other  particulars  must  abate  or  de- 
stroy its  creed ;  yet  on  its  face,  with  full  credit,  there 
is  no  evidence  that  diocesan  episcopacy  was  adopted 
three  hundred  years  before  its  time  in  history.  The 
fact  that  James  appeared  to  be  residing  at  Jerusalem 
when  the  council  of  apostles  and  elders  met  there  (Acts 
XV.)  is  of  no  force  for  such  a  claim  ;  it  only  proves  that 
he  was  there  before  others  arrived.  And  many  learned 
men  among  the  ancients — Gregory  of  Nyssen,  Clement, 
author  of  the  Recognitions,  Dorotheus  and  Michael  Gly- 
cas — with  Eusebius  himself,  believed  that  James,  whom 
tradition  makes  the  first  bishop  of  Jerusalem,  was  one 
of  the  seventy  whom  our  Lord  had  sent  before  him  as 
he  proceeded  through  the  land  of  Judsea.  But,  even 
admitting  that  James  the  Apostle  was  first  bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  it  does  not  prove  that  the  sublime  and  ubiq- 
uitous commissioners  whom  the  ascending  Head  sent 
forth  to  all  the  world  settled  down  everywhere  in  di- 
oceses to  bear  witness  for  him  in  corners,  respectively, 
as  soon  as  they  could  agree  upon  the  boundaries. 

VI.  Presbyters  succeed  the  apostles  iu  their  work, 
all  that  can  be  done  in  the  service  of  the  gospel,  since 
these  extraordinary  witnesses  finished  their  testimony. 
The  great  work  to  be  done  lies,  of  course,  on  the  face 
of  the  great  commission  to  teach  and  baptize.  Formali- 
ties of  investiture,  such  as  ordination,  cannot  be  of  equal 
importance,  and  must  be  at  the  best  only  means  to  this 
end,  inferior  in  value  and  sio-nificauce  wherever  it  is 
held  that  man  does  not  confer  the  ministry.  What, 
13 


194  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tlieu,  are  the  reserved  powers  of  apostolic  dignity  which 
descend  to  men  of  a  higher  order  than  presbyters? 
Separated  from  the  word  and  sacraments,  what  do  they 
inherit?  A  ceremony  at  most  which  has  never  been 
fairly  defined,  and  which  its  advocates  cannot  agree  in 
defining.  And  even  could  they  agree  and  be  able  to 
demonstrate  the  ceremony  to  be  superlative  in  value, 
what  are  the  qualifications  of  the  rank  so  empowered — 
the  apostle-bishop  distinguished  from  the  presbyter- 
bishop?  To  the  primitive  qualifications  of  apostle 
they  cannot  pretend  ;  to  the  scriptural  qualifications 
of  a  bishop  they  must  give  up  a  perfect  equality  with 
elders,  as  the  Bible  directs,  most  obviously ;  yet  with 
strange  inconsistency  they  are  compelled  to  read  the 
qualifications  of  an  elder  as  those  of  the  diocesan  bishop. 
No  distinctive  qualifications  for  such  an  office  can  be 
found  in  Holy  Writ,  and  of  course  no  scriptural  warrant 
for  the  office.  All  that  is  divinely  specified  for  the 
work  of  the  ministry  and  its  indispensable  endowment 
being  manifestly  found  in  another  channel  descending, 
is  it  not  fair  to  conclude  that  this  one  is  empty,  man- 
made  and  presumptuous? 

VII.  It  is  impossible  to  make  out  a  line  of  succes- 
sion through  such  apostle-bishops  as  a  matter  of  his- 
torical deduction.  Antecedent  embarrassment  in  bridg- 
ing the  interval  between  them  and  original  apostles,  for 
want  of  the  name,  the  work  and  the  qualifications  of 
apostle,  must  be  added  to  all  the  difficulties  already 
specified  in  the  Romish  succession  if  that  be  the  line 
preferred,  as  it  is  by  the  Tractarians  of  Oxford,  and 
added  to  still  greater  difficulties  if  it  be  preferred,  as  it 
seems  to  be,  by  American  prelates — some  of  them,  at 
least — to  trace  their  succession  in  England  itself  back  to 


PRKLATICAL  SUCCESSION.  195 

the  apostle  Paul.  That  Paul  or  any  other  apo^itle  came 
to  Great  Britain  has  uo  historical  foundation  except  the 
statement  of  Clemens  Romauus  that  Paul  traveled  "  to 
the  utmost  bounds  of  the  West,"  which  Theodoret  three 
hundred  years  afterward  made  out  to  mean  Britain. 
This  is  the  first  link,  and  rather  too  long  a  suspense 
of  history  intervening  to  be  plausible.  But,  granting 
that  it  was  credibly  ascertained,  we  find  no  continuous 
record  to  ccmfirni  the  fact  or  to  invite  our  faith  in  any 
succession  to  him ;  for  every  line  was  broken  by  the  Dio- 
cletian persecution,  whi('h  followed — l)urning  the  books, 
demolishing  the  temples  and  slaughtering  every  priest 
and  every  bishop  in  the  province.  And  if  any  fragments 
of  the  chain  escaped  that  fury,  they  must  have  been 
buried  from  the  sight  of  Christendom  when  the  Saxons 
came  over  and  restored  the  reign  of  })agan  idolatry  for 
a  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Rome  replaced  Christianity 
in  England,  but  not  without  many  a  dubious  fact  in  the 
course  of  ministerial  succession.  There  was  an  ancient 
stream  from  North  Britain  which  gives  trouble  to  mi- 
tred antiquarians — a  stream  of  presbytorian  ordinations 
from  the  Culdees  of  lona — which  the  Venerable  Bede 
confesses,  and  which  became  the  fountain  of  ecclesias- 
tical power  to  many  a  prelate  of  England  ;  and  then, 
through  generations  after,  there  was  many  an  oversight 
or  mistake  in  subsequent  ordinations  which,  according 
to  late  learned  exactness  in  the  credentials  of  pedigree, 
must  baffle  the  heraldry  of  modern  apostles.  Arch- 
bishop Parker,  in  the  reign  of  Elizabeth,  was  conse- 
crated by  four  bishops  who  had  been  deposed  in  the 
reign  of  Bloody  Mary  and  never  restored,  and  for  a 
while  presbyters  from  Geneva  and  other  parts  of  Con- 
tinental Europe,  like  Morrison,  were  admitted   to  full 


196  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

orders  without  reordi nation.    And  within  the  reahii  itself 
some  of  the  most  illustrious  bishops  and  archbishops  of 
the  Anglican  Church — Burnet,  Butler,  Seeker  and  Tillot- 
son — especially  from  Presbyterian  and  other  dissenting 
homes,  came  into  the  Establishment  without  feeling  the 
attraction  of  apostolic  virtue  there  more  than  Cranmer 
did,  or  seeking  confirmation  to  cure  the  defects  of  Puritan 
baptism — if,  indeed,  they  had  been  baptized  at  all,  for 
one  of  them,  at  least,  is  said  to  have  been  the  son  of  an 
Anabaptist   father,   and    probably   was  nev^er  baptized. 
Conformity  has  hardly  ever  failed  to  carry  with  it  some 
anomaly  into  the  so-called  apostolic  channel — either  an 
excess  in  the  form  of  intemperate  zeal,  which  certainly 
did  not  characterize  a  genuine  apostle,  or  an  earnest  nolo 
episcopori,  which  also  never  was  known  to  be  reluctant 
among  the  disciples  whom  Jesus  "named  apostles;"  for, 
like  Paul,  the  true-hearted  would  instantly  accept  and 
"magnify"  the  office,  and  exclaim,  "Lord,  what  wilt 
thou  have  me  to  do?"     Bishop  Burnet  refused  the  offer 
of  a  bishopric  in  Scotland  because  the  diocesans  there 
would  not  be  parochial  enough  in  the  cure  of  souls  nor 
live  as  proper    examples  to  the  flock ;    and   when,   at 
length,  promoted  to  the  see  of  Salisbury,  he  distinguished 
his  ministry  as  eminently  parochial  in  the  diligence  and 
minuteness  of  his   visitation  and  the  incessancy  of  his 
personal  preaching  and  private  exhortation.       The  Pas- 
toral Care,  from  his  pen,  as  well  as  the  practice  of  his 
life,  evinces  that  any  consciousness  in  him  of  apostolic 
tradition  was    in    the  parish   pastor,  etc.,  and  the  dio- 
cesan superiority  came  only  from  the  State.     So  with 
Bishop    Butler,   whose    Analogy  distinguished    him    so 
greatly  in  the  world  of  thought.     When  King  George 
IT.  appointed  him  to  the  deanery  of  St.  Paul's,  Lon- 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  197 

don,  he  declined  the  dignity,  preferring  to  remain  in  his 
parish  at  Stanhope ;  and  when  he  was  transhited  after- 
ward to  the  see  of  Durham,  he  accepted  it  as  the  gift  of 
civil  authority,  not  dreaming  that  it  came  to  him  in 
regular  descent  from  the  apostle  Paul.  Archbishop 
Seeker,  without  seeking  or  assuming  anything  more 
than  the  office  of  parochial  bishop,  was  made  by  civil 
authority  bishop  of  Bristol  and  of  Loudon,  and  then 
primate  of  all  England,  and  had  the  rare  privilege  of 
anointing  two  heads  of  the  Anglican  Church  in  suc- 
cession— George  II.  and  George  III. — having  received 
that  primacy  from  the  duke  of  Newcastle,  who  was  at 
the  head  of  the  cabinet  in  the  government  of  the  king- 
dom. Prior  to  Seeker  the  accomplished  Tillotsou  was 
archbishop  of  Canterbury,  and  is  said  to  have  done 
what  he  could  to  avoid  the  honor,  accepting  it  with 
unfeigned  reluctance  at  the  bidding  of  a  secular  magis- 
tracy, and  that,  probably,  to  reward  him  for  the  only 
blot  on  his  character — a  vain  attempt  to  extort  from 
Lord  Russell,  on  the  scaffold,  a  declaration  in  favor  of 
passive  obedience  to  monarchy.  Certainly,  these  great 
and  good  prelates  never  imagined  apostolic  virtues  to 
stream  on  the  sublimer  currents  of  clerical  promotion,  or 
any  other  current  of  succession,  than  what  Peter  signi- 
fied when  he  wrote,  "  The  elders  which  are  amoncr  vou 
I  exhort,  who  am  also  an  elder,  and  a  witness  of  the 
sufferings  of  Christ :  feed  the  flock  of  God  which  is 
among  you,  taking  the  oversight  thereof,  not  by  con- 
straint, but  willingly  ;  neither  as  being  lords  over  God's 
heritage,  but  being  ensamples  to  the  flock."  1  Pet.  v. 

American  prelacy,  being  without  any  shade  of  theo- 
cratical  establishment  or  mixture  of  Church  and  State 
making  turbid   or  dubious   the  channel   of  descent,  is 


198  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

obliged  to  make  the  most  of  apostolical  significance  in 
its  vacuity  and  claims;  but  the  derivation  is  remark- 
ably peculiar.  Bishop  Seabury  was  ordained  the  first 
American  prelate  in  1784,  but  it  was  in  Scotland,  among 
the  "non-juror"  ecclesiastics  and  where  there  is  presump- 
tion of  history  that  prelacy  had  its  origin  in  presbytery, 
and  as  a  stream  it  could  rise  no  higher  than  the  foun- 
tain. Besides,  Burnet,  though  born  and  reared  in  Edin- 
burgh, declined  a  bishopric  there  on  other  and  worse 
grounds.  Consequently,  doubts  respecting  the  suffi- 
ciency of  Seabury's  consecration  widely  prevailed,  al- 
thouo-h  he  went  on  to  ordain  and  his  ordinations  were 
considered  valid.  The  next  three  bishops,  however, 
went  to  England  together,  for  consecration — White, 
Madison  and  Prevoost — but  there  the  prelates  of  the 
realm,  strangely  unconscious  of  apostolic  prerogative  in 
themselves,  Avould  do  nothing  of  the  kind  without  con- 
sent of  the  king  and  his  legislature.  Accordingly,  it 
is  said,  an  act  of  Parliament  was  procured  allowing 
ordinations  for  the  United  States  by  warrant  from  His 
Majesty,  and  with  a  proviso  that  no  bishop  so  conse- 
crated, and  DO  priest  or  deacon  ordained  by  him,  should 
be  allowed  to  exercise  their  functions  within  His  Majes- 
ty's dominions.  However  much  that  legislation  be  now 
regarded  as  a  dead  letter,  it  is  a  formal  tie  which  binds 
American  prelacy  to  the  succession  of  the  past,  and  a 
solecism  in  the  charter  derived  from  our  supreme  and 
eternal  Head,  which  is  catholic  without  limitation  and 
includes  the  twelve,  the  elders  and  the  people  together 
in  that  sublime  behest,  "All  power  is  given  unto  me, 
in  heaven  and  in  earth.  Go  ye  therefore,  and  teach  all 
nations." 

The    entire  withdrawal    of  State  support  and  polity 


PRELATICAL  SUCCESSION.  199 

from  ecclesiastical  constitutions  in  this  country  seems 
also  to  have  doubled  the  stress  with  which  prelacy  leans 
on  formulas  of  heredity  and  minute  exactness  of  words 
and  signs.  When  Bishops  Hobart  and  Griswold  were 
consecrated,  in  the  early  part  of  this  century,  it  appears 
that  certain  words  were  omitted  in  the  performance  of 
the  ceremonies,  which  gave  rise  to  much  animated  and 
anxious  debate  and  to  considerable  fear  for  the  legitimacy 
of  succession.  A  contemporaneous  pamphleteer  thus  pub- 
lished the  disturbance  of  his  faith  :  "  Suppose,  then,  at 
some  future  period,  when  the  heat  of  passion  is  allayed, 
when  calm  reflection  is  suffered  to  be  called  into  exercise, 
that  then  it  shall  be  found  and  acknowledged  that  the 
considerations  here  advanced  have  weight,  and  that  the 
consecration  is  attended  with  an  essential  defect ;  what 
shall  then  be  the  state  of  our  Church  ?  Our  priesthood 
invalid,  our  succession  lost ;  numbers,  under  a  show  of 
ordination,  ministering  without  authority,  and  the  evil  so 
extended  as  to  be  beyond  the  power  of  correction.  ...  I 
am  seriously  and  conscientiously  persuaded  that  the 
omission  of  the  solemn  words  is  material,  that  it  is 
essential,  that  it  renders  the  whole  form,  besides,  an 
utter  nullity."  Such  are  the  incertitude  and  the  hazard 
of  diocesan  succession  beneath  the  light  of  modern  ob- 
servation. 

And  what  must  it  have  been  through  fifteen  hundred 
years  preceding,  when  the  highest  dignities  of  this  kind 
in  England  were  sold  at  times  to  the  highest  bidder, 
bestowed  in  popular  tumult,  or  given  by  a  profligate 
woman  to  her  paramour  or  by  a  feudal  baron  to  his 
kinsman?  In  the  time  of  Alfred  there  was  hardly  a 
priest  to  be  found  south  of  the  Thames  who  could  read 
Latin  or  English ;  and  boys  ten  or  twelve  years  old  were 


200  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

invested  with  the  ring  and  crosier,  and  the  striplings, 
drunk  or  sober,  would  impart  episcopal  virtue  to  others 
of  their  own  age  or  older.  So  it  was — better  and  worse 
by  turns — till  the  time  of  King  Henry  VIII.,  that  cruel 
and  licentious  monarch  who  rudely  arrested  the  old  suc- 
cession and  made  himself  henceforth  the  fountain  of 
ecclesiastical  ordinations. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION  IN  THE 

MINISTRY. 

WHEN  Luther  supposed,  in  his  constructive  hypoth- 
esis, a  com])auy  of  church-members  cast  upon  a 
desert  ishind  without  a  regular  ministry  to  break  the 
bread  of  life  and  dispense  the  ordinances  of  Christian 
worship,  and  without  the  prospect  or  the  possibility  of 
obtaining  one,  he  asserted  the  competency  of  that  forlorn 
community  to  choose  one  of  their  own  number  best 
qualified,  in  their  judgment,  for  the  sacred  office,  and 
to  set  him  apart  with  any  form  of  becoming  solemnity. 
That  ordination,  he  insisted,  would  be  valid  as  much  as 
if  it  were  conferred  by  all  the  bishops  in  the  world. 
This  reveals  to  us  a  logical  fairness  in  the  mind  of  that 
great  Reformer  respecting  the  last  commission  of  our 
Lord — that  it  was  bestowed  upon  the  whole  Church, 
including  the  people,  of  course,  as  well  as  the  eleven 
whom  he  charged  as  representatives.  But  this  dotted 
line  of  Luther  has  been  rubbed  out  by  later  theologians, 
not  all  of  them  prelatical,  who  seem  to  stickle  for  points 
of  order  more  than  for  the  substance  or  the  proceeding 
itself,  and  he  is  charged  by  Dr.  Sanuiel  Hoj^kins  with 
"begging  the  question"  because  the  promise  of  our 
ascending  Master  to  be  with  us  alway,  even  to  the  end 
of  the  world,  is  so  positive  and  potent  in  securing  its 

201 


202  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

own  fulfilment  that  such  a  case  could  never  occur  in  the 
providence  of  God. 

Yet  is  there  not  much  more  a  begging  of  the  question 
in  such  presumption  upon  that  precious  promise,  making 
it  the  bolster  of  a  ceremony?  Think  of  our  need  of 
'having  Jesus  with  us  in  the  perils  and  toils  and  contra- 
diction of  sinners  against  us,  the  weakness  and  weari- 
ness, the  reverses  and  despondency,  the  wants,  the  neces- 
sities, the  distresses,  the  hopes,  the  adventures,  the 
results — in  short,  everything — in  the  actual  experience 
of  ministers  which  the  presence  of  Christ  by  his  Spirit 
will  succor  and  uphold  rather  than  a  mere  ceremony 
of  succession  which  at  the  most  is  only  means  to  an  end. 
A  joint  is  important  and  useful,  and  ordinarily  indispen- 
sable, but  it  occupies  little  or  no  space  in  the  body.  The 
juncture  of  one  generation  with  another  in  office  to  con- 
tinue the  order  is  precisely  similar  in  relative  value.  It 
designates  only  transition ;  and  when  made  more  than 
this,  order  is  but  obstacle.  Surely,  it  is  the  arm,  and  not 
the  elbow,  that  we  stretch  out  in  fighting  the  good  fight 
of  faith.  It  is  the  car  itself,  and  not  the  coupler,  which 
in  the  free  course  of  the  gospel  carries  that  trained  per- 
sonnel who  go  to  gird  the  world  with  light  and  love.  It 
is  the  great  work  of  saving  souls  and  building  up  God's 
people  in  their  most  holy  faith  which  engages  the  per- 
petual presence  of  Jesus,  with  but  little  ceremony,  and 
less  of  pedigree,  when  we  are  prepared  and  recognized 
at  the  entrance  as  called  of  God. 

The  significant  silence  of  our  Lord  himself  on  the 
method  of  succession  when  he  meant  this  to  be  per- 
petual in  the  "  alway  "  of  his  promise,  not  even  hinting 
whether  it  should  be  visible  or  invisible,  or  neither,  in- 
variably— whether  its   line  should  be  continued  at  the 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRTNE  OF  SUVVKSSION.       203 

top  or  at  the  bottom  of  his  huikling  by  the  Spirit,  the 
bishops  or  the  people  of  his  fold,  or  by  both  together  in 
action — should  make  ns  modest  as  we  are  loyal  in  dog- 
matizing at  this  impalpable  point.  Probably  the  ascend- 
ing Jesus,  like  his  succeeding  disciples  through  subse- 
quent time,  who  are  apt  to  recall  the  usages  of  youth  in 
religion  and  think  how  choice  they  were,  though  homely, 
when  about  to  leave  this  world,  thought  of  the  syna- 
gogue at  Nazareth  where  he  was  accustomed  to  worship 
with  his  parents,  and  other  synagogues  where  he  began 
and  continued  his  own  ministry  on  earth,  as  a  model 
good  enough  for  all  time,  with  its  freedom  of  franchise 
for  the  people,  its  deference  to  rulers,  invitation  to  quali- 
fied teachers  and  preachers  and  readers  of  Scripture,  its 
resiliency  to  the  past  and  suitableness  to  the  present  and 
accommodation  to  the  future  of  that  one  Church  for 
which  he  suifered  and  died  and  would  ever  intercede. 
We  dare  to  affirm  that  such  characteristics  as  these,  by 
whatever  name  we  call  the  institute,  are  the  interpreta- 
tion of  his  silence  on  the  subject  of  succession. 

Almost  equally  silent  were  the  apostles  of  Christ  on 
the  subject  of  ordination.  Their  example  was  also  re- 
served ;  and  when  they  did  either  speak  or  act  in  the 
exercise  of  authority  reposed  in  them,  it  was  to  repro- 
duce the  synagogue  in  its  norm  of  organization  by  the 
appointment  of  elders,  making  their  succession  to  hinge 
on  personal  faithfulness  and  ability  in  the  future,  just  as 
in  the  past,  of  the  ecclesia.  There  is  no  record  of  one 
apostle  officiating  in  ordination.  The  passage  in  2  Tim. 
i.  6  ("  Wherefore,  I  put  thee  in  remembrance  that  thou 
stir  up  the  gift  of  God  which  is  in  thee,  by  the  putting 
on  of  my  hands ")  does  not  refer  to  ordination,  but  to 
the  Pentecostal  charism  of  extraordinary  faith,  such  as 


204  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

characterized  the  apostolic  age,  as  we  see  in  the  context. 
His  grandmother  and  his  mother,  and  Timothy  himself, 
shared  such  a  gift,  and  it  was  usually  bestowed  by  a  lone 
apostle  h'ying  on  his  hands.  Acts  xix.  6.  But  Timothy 
was  "  ordained  with  the  laying  on  of  the  hands  of  the 
presbytery,"  as  we  shall  notice  again. 

It  was  only  the  return  of  sacerdotal  mediation  which 
beo;an  to  make  the  mere  Hgrature  of  succession  a  distinct 
and  prominent  thing  in  the  attention  of  the  Christian 
Church.  It  was  when  the  names  of  priest,  altar,  sacri- 
fice, incense,  vestments,  processions,  etc. — all  the  vocab- 
ulary of  the  old  temple-service — became  the  affectation 
of  degenerate  Christianity  after  the  destruction  of  the 
Jewish  State  by  Hadrian  in  the  second  century  that  the 
tie  of  one  generation  to  another  in  office  became  signal 
and  that  genealogies  became  ethical  and  weighty,  more 
than  doctrines  themselves.  The  whole  tribe  of  Levi,  as 
it  were,  seemed  reinstated  in  the  Church.  Persons  more 
than  qualifications  were  considered,  places  more  than 
missions,  dignities  more  than  ministries  and  ordination 
itself  more  than  order,  and  soon  transmuted  to  a  sacra- 
ment of  more  intrinsic  mystery  than  even  baptism  and 
the  Lord's  Supper.  The  two  distinct  lines  of  service  in 
the  old  economy  which  Messiah  came  both  to  unify  and 
to  simplify  were  unified  now  by  way  of  amalgam  with 
all  simplicity  left  out  and  much  of  Judaism  and  some- 
thing of  paganism  put  in.  And  so  the  lump  descended 
until  the  great  Reformation.  Wherever  this  revival 
could  be  developed  fairly,  without  obstruction  from  the 
State,  the  following  has  been  evinced  as  the  consensus  of 
Protestant  Christianity  on  the  subject  of  succession  in  the 
ministry. 

I.  It  is  a  measure  of  order  which  is  relative,  and  not 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.       205 

absolute,  in  the  necessity.  Order  is  always  frangible  in 
proportion  as  it  is  high-strung,  and  order  for  the  sake 
of  order  is  self-destructive.  It  is  the  beautiful  symmetry 
and  strength  of  our  faith  to  have  truth  as  the  foundation 
and  consistency  as  the  plumb-line  of  all  structure,  and  of 
duration  too.  When  the  apostle  Paul  discloses  to  the 
evangelist  Timothy  all  that  is  couched  in  the  mystery 
of  ordination  and  succession,  it  is  in  these  words  (2  Tim. 
ii.  2) :  "And  the  things  that  thou  hast  heard  of  me 
among  many  witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faith- 
ful men,  who  shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also."  He 
does  not  say  "able  to  ordain  others  also,"  as  he  would 
have  said  if  the  grace  of  orders  were  a  mystery  to  be 
handed  on  from  one  man  to  another,  or  the  succession  it 
effected  were  apostolical  in  its  level  or  its  height  or  grade 
of  any^  kind.  It  is  not  the  function,  but  the  doctrine ; 
not  the  ruler,  but  the  teacher;  not  the  circumstance  of 
appointment,  but  the  ability  which  conditions  and  de- 
serves it, — that  the  apostle  manifestly  indicates  for  the 
guidance  of  the  Church  in  every  age.  Observe,  on  the 
face  of  this  important  passage,  how  faithfulness  and 
ability  are  made  so  essential  and  paramount  that  we 
must  understand  them  to  be  sufficient  in  themselves, 
with  any  kind  of  conventional  agreement  in  the  Church, 
for  ever  to  constitute  a  valid  transmission  of  her  ministry. 
The  injunction  "Commit  thou"  expresses  in  the 
original  the  idea  of  trust  confided,  and  this  idea  will 
associate  in  its  notion  wisdom,  integrity,  care,  diligence, 
responsibility, — all  to  be  considered  in  the  recipient  of  a 
trust,  whilst  the  regular  form  of  handing  it  over  is  com- 
paratively of  little  importance.  It  should  be  noticed, 
also,  that  in  a  parallel  place  (1  Tim.  vi.  20)  the  matter 
of  trust  is  in  the  singular  number  :  "  O  Timothy,  keep 


206  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

that  which  is  committed  to  thy  trust."  Here  it  is  plural : 
"The  thiugs  that  thou  hast  heard  of  me/'  etc.  The 
kind  of  trust  in  both  places  must  be  the  same — the 
gospel  of  the  grace  of  God,  the  great  facts  in  the  life, 
death,  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Jesus,  the  rule  of 
faith  and  life  in  the  Scriptures,  the  whole  "mystery  of 
godliness "  and  the  conversion  of  souls.  These  had 
now  become  a  multiplied  information  abundantly  au- 
thenticated to  the  knowledge  and  experience  of  Timothy, 
when  he  is  instructed  to  ordain  others  in  the  way  of  en- 
trusting them  to  faithful  and  capable  men.  It  is  by  no 
means  a  gratuitous  comment  on  this  comparison  to  say 
that  ordination  itself  makes  progress  with  the  progress 
of  the  gospel  and  the  education  of  its  ministry,  that  suc- 
cession is  an  open  secret  and  one  of  enlargement  in  its 
openness,  that  the  increasing  evidences  of  Christianity, 
"many  witnesses,"  its  widespreading  triumph  of  mis- 
sionary enterprise  and  indirect  beuefaction  to  all  human 
interests,  and  its  ever-expanding  field  for  the  novitiates, 
devolve  on  successors  to  us  now  more  "  things  "  which 
are  "  most  surely  believed,"  more  widely  established, 
more  abundantly  furnished,  than  all  the  charges  our 
own  consecration  coutaiued.  No  sacrament  in  ordina- 
tion could  make  progress  in  this  way.  No  one  thing  of 
earth  could  so  multiply  and  develop  itself  in  one  genera- 
tion. No  Timothy  could  be  found  to  say  that  the  laying 
on  of  the  hands  of  the  Presbytery  now  cannot  purport 
more  "  things  "  of  significance  than  were  included  in  the 
charge  at  his  own  ordination.  The  formula  of  induction, 
of  course,  should  remain  without  alteration,  for  the  sake 
of  regularity  ;  but  assuredly  the  purport  of  such  solemnity 
grows  apace  and  in  manifestation  ;  the  plural  is  multi-  . 
plied,  and    succession    must   go    on    to    thrive    without 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.       207 

monopoly,  and  travel  now  to  the  end  of  the  world 
without  a  ribbon  on  its  trumpet  or  a  vestment  for  its 
badffe.  There  is  no  secreted  virtue  hid  in  succession. 
On  the  other  hand,  no  lineage  of  succession  whose  ordi- 
nation is  titular  only  can  have  a  valid  claim  to  preach, 
baptize  and  ordain,  however  derived  and  perfectly  ru- 
brical in  its  legitimacy,  without  faithfulness  and  ability 
in  the  subject.  Induction  is  a  wicked  presumption  with- 
out supreme  relation  to  these  qualifications.  And  this 
relative  measure  of  order  is  conceded  by  Palmer  of 
Oxford  in  his  exhaustive  apology  for  the  Church  of 
England  when  he  says  in  substance  that  no  regularity 
of  transmission  which  originates  in  heresy  or  schism  can 
make  a  valid  ministry.  What  vitiates  a  line  at  the  be- 
ginning would  spoil  it  also  at  the  middle  and  anywhere 
along  its  course  where  entrance  is  made.  No  matter  how 
true  and  how  regular  may  be  the  beginning  of  a  line,  the 
lapse  of  its  descent  into  heresy  or  into  schism  will  invali- 
date the  transmission  and  make  succession  void  for  want 
of  faithfulness  and  ability  in  continuance ;  so  that  thei*e 
is  no  point  of  view  at  which  these  factors  in  ordination 
are  not  seen  to  be  an  absolute  need,  and  that  initial  per- 
formance they  justify  as  no  more  than  a  relative  and 
secondary  enactment.  We  must  imagine  the  opus  opera- 
tum  of  a  sacrament  in  orders  to  make  the  form  an  abso- 
lute necessity — the  technical  firmer  than  the  moral,  the 
nominal  and  artificial  supreme  in  its  obligation  after  sub- 
stance and  life  have  departed. 

II.  This  relative  need  of  order  in  succession  is  ful- 
filled in  that  of  presbyters,  especially  when  charged  as 
bishops  having  the  oversight  of  particular  flocks  re- 
spectively. It  is  now  universally  conceded  by  the 
candid    and    intelligent    churchmen    of    this   age    that 


208  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Jerome  of  the  fourth  century  was  right  in  contending, 
that  the  Bible  uses  "bishop"  and  "presbyter"  in  the 
same  sense  convertibly  and  continually,  with  this  as  the 
only  shade  of  difference — that  "  presbyter "  is  called 
"  bishop "  when  charged  with  the  oversight  of  a  par- 
ticular church.  All  the  early  Fathers,  from  the  time 
of  the  apostles  to  the  First  General  Council,  at  Nice, 
A.  D.  325,  may  be  fairly  construed  as  holding  the  same 
opinion.  Toward  the  end  of  this  period  the  parochial 
bishops  began  to-  claim  superiority  of  rank  over  one 
another  according  to  the  importance  of  the  particular 
churches  they  tended,  especially  the  city  churches  over 
the  country  churches.  But  this  was  not  in  extent  of 
jurisdiction  until  Church  and  State  united  and  Con- 
stantine  began  to  measure  off  the  bishoprics  to  cor- 
respond with  minor  provinces  of  his  empire.  Then 
came  into  ecclesiastical  parlance  the  word  "diocese" — 
a  term  of  merely  civil  and  secular  origin,  expressing  in 
its  Greek  etymon  a  territorial  district  parcelled  out 
with  special  view  to  the  financial  economy  in  govern- 
ment. Of  course,  like  other  words,  it  could  be  Chris- 
tianized as  it  became  convenient,  but  such  adoption 
could  never  make  it  "  apostolical "  and  "  divine  "  with- 
out some  sanction  from  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
such  as  Jesus  breathed  on  his  apostles. 

Ireuaeus,  bishop  of  Lyons  and  Vienne  A.  D.  177-202, 
born  in  Asia  Minor,  acquainted  with  Polycarp  in  his 
youth  and  regarded  as  the  best  pacificator  of  his  age 
between  the  East  and  the  West,  in  his  celebrated  work 
against  heresies  refers  again  and  again  to  the  true  apos- 
tolical ministry  as  descending  in  the  line  of  presbyters, 
elders — whom  he  denominates  "  bishops "  interchange- 
ably— as  the  true  integers  of  succession  from  the  apos- 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.       209 

ties.  In  book  iii.  chap.  2  he  says  of  heretics:  "When 
we  refer  them  to  that  tradition  which  originates  from 
the  apostles,  and  which  is  preserved  by  means  of  the 
successions  of  presbyters  in  the  churches,  they  object  to 
tradition,  saying  that  they  themselv-es  are  wiser  than 
the  apostles  because  they  have  discovered  the  unadul- 
terated truth."  Then,  hardly  a  page  farther  on,  in  the 
same  book  (chap.  3),  we  read  these  remarkable  and 
memorable  words,  synoptical  of  all  patristic  literature 
on  the  subject  of  succession,  showing  that  it  is  simple 
history  in  its  nature,  without  mystery  or  any  hidden 
virtue  descending:  "It  is  in  the  power  of  all,  therefore, 
who  may  wish  to  see  the  truth  to  contemplate  clearly 
the  tradition  of  the  apostles  manifested  throughout  the 
whole  world,  and  we  are  in  a  position  to  reckon  up 
those  who  were  by  the  apostles  instituted  bishops  in  the 
churches  and  the  successions  of  these  men  to  our  own 
times — those  who  neither  taught  nor  knew  of  anything 
like  what  these  rave  about.  For  if  the  apostles  had 
known  hidden  mysteries  which  they  were  in  the  habit 
of  imparting  to  the  perfect,  .  .  .  they  would  have  de- 
livered them,  especially  to  those  to  whom  they  were  also 
committing  the  churches  themselves.  For  they  were 
desirous  that  these  men  should  be  very  perfect  and 
blameless  in  all  things,  whom  also  they  were  leaving 
behind  as  their  successors,  delivering  up  their  own  place 
of  government  to  these  men  ;  which  men,  if  they  dis- 
charged their  functions  honestly,  would  be  a  great  boon ; 
but  if  they  should  fall  away,  the  direst  calamity." 

III.  The  actual  tradition  of  the  ministry  since  the 
day  of  the  apostles,  according  to  history  which  is  au- 
thentic, will  furnish  no  more  than  a  substantial  trans- 
mission of  clerical  order  to  any  candid  research.     Iren- 
14 


210  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

sens,  whom  we  have  quoted  as  using  the  titles  "  elder " 
aud  "  bishop  "  precisely  as  the  apostles  did,  convertibly 
and  applied  to  the  miuistry  that  were  immediate  suc- 
cessors to  them  iu  the  governmeut  and  guidance  of  the 
Church,  might  count  and  name  the  presbyter-bishops 
in  conspicuous  positions  for  a  century  or  more  preceding 
his  day,  and  might  try  to  confute  the  heretics  with  such 
an  exact  tradition  ;  but  farther  on — a  century  later  than 
his  day — such  tradition  weakened  to  uncertainty,  and 
Eusebius  Pamphilius  found  it  so  confused  and  obscure 
that  he  resorted  to  conjecture  in  attempting  to  make  out 
the  chain,  and  his  day  was  the  date  of  new  computa- 
tions for  the  future  and  the  fable  of  diocesan  bishops, 
believed  in  as  the  bishops  of  the  Bible,  and  therefore 
to  be  regarded  as  true  successors  of  the  apostles.  The 
overturning  of  both  Church  and  State  which  followed, 
through  the  ages,  the  quarrels  between  Greek  and  Latin 
churches  of  Christendom,  the  darkness,  confusion  and 
illiteracy  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  persecutions,  irruptions, 
tumults  and  spiritual  despotism  which  suppressed  the  pas- 
tors, quenched  the  lights  and  hid  or  destroyed  the  dip- 
tychs  and  memorials  of  the  past, — these  aud  other  causes 
made  it  for  ever  impossible  so  to  track  the  legitimate  suc- 
cession of  ministers  anywhere  as  to  fix  our  faith  on  lines 
or  know  the  transmission  of  anything  credible  except, 
substantially,  the  continuance  of  faithfulness  and  ability 
among  the  witnesses  for  God,  which,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
apostles  mentioned  as  the  essence  of  succession  to  them. 

In  the  valleys  of  Piedmont  and  Lana-uedoc,  as  well 
as  elsewhere  iu  the  isles  and  fastnesses  of  Western 
Europe,  we  have  well-authenticated  succession  of  peo- 
ples and  teachers — if  not  by  name  and  particular  place, 
yet   w^ho   by    faithful    adherence   to    gospel    truth   and 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.       211 

ability  iu  witness-bearing  realized  the  faithfulness  and 
the  ability  of  Him  who  had  promised  to  be  with  them 
alway.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  could  recover  from 
>  oblivion  every  name  and  every  ordination  since  the 
time  of  the  apostles  in  the  lines  of  so-called  Catholic 
churches,  Greek  and  Latin,  Anglican  and  American,  we 
would  have  to  test  their  canonicity  by  the  charge  of 
Paul  to  Timothy  ("  Commit  thou  to  faithful  men,  who 
shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also  "),  or  we  must  reject 
them  as  no  matter  at  all  of  faith  which  never  can 
repose  on  genealogies  or  any  i-eghne  of  pedigree  as  more 
than  husks  between  our  confidence  and  the  substantial 
nutriment  they  have  so  often  hidden  from  the  eye  of 
faith. 

IV.  The  last  great  commission  of  our  Saviour  (Matt. 
xxviii.  19,  20),  which  has  called  into  existence  a  Chris- 
tian ministry  from  age  to  age,  must  be  supposed  to  bear 
upon  its  face  the  cardinal  points  of  the  minister's  errand, 
and  above  the  tenor  and  the  plane  of  the  office  it  confei'S 
there  is  nothing  higher,  holier  or  more  potential  for  this 
ministry  to  seek  than  missionary-going — preaching  the 
word,  administering  the  sacraments  and  practical  injunc- 
tion upon  men  of  what  he  has  commanded  ourselves  to 
observe.  If  in  these  categories  there  be  couched  any- 
thing more  than  they  subtend,  it  must  be,  surely,  of 
subordinate  value,  for  these  are  the  greatest  things  of 
his  kingdom,  and  anything  else  must  be  subsidiary,  as 
means  to  an  end  or  as  accident  to  substance.  By  virtue 
of  "all  power"  in  himself  he  made  this  memorable 
utterance  without  a  hint  of  reconstructing  power  in 
apostles  themselves  or  their  successors  beyond  the 
pledge  of  his  own  presence  with  them  "alway."  The 
power  of  the  keys,  opening  and  shutting,  binding  and 


212  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

loosing,  with  which  they  were  ah'eady  invested  when  he 
breathed  upon  them  and  bade  them  receive  the  Holy 
Ghost,  may  be  comprehended  fairly  in  the  proper  ad- 
ministration of  sacraments,  receiving  the  penitent  and 
worthy  and  excluding  the  impenitent  and  unworthy. 

But  in  these  latter  days  we  are  called  to"  notice  another 
commission  which  is  implied,  it  is  alleged,  in  John  xx. 
51  :  "As  my  Father  hath  sent  me,  even  so  send  I  you." 
This  has  become  a, frequent,  if  not  an  ordinary,  text  at 
the  consecration  of  apostle-bishops — that  is,  bishops  in 
the  diocesan  sense,  higher  in  rank  than  parochial  or 
presbyter-bishops.  Without  impatiently  rejecting  such 
an  application  of  these  divine  words  for  the  arrogance 
and  apparent  impiety  of  such  interpretation  claiming 
that  any  order  of  men  may  stand  for  Christ  as  he  stands 
for  God  the  Father  in  sending,  we  need  only  see  that  the 
particle  "  as  "  in  the  passage  must  be  a  similitude  between 
the  parties  sending,  and  not  the  parties  sent — between 
God  the  Father  and  God  the  Son,  and  not  between  the 
Son  of  God  and  mitred  worms  of  the  dust  in  any  exercise 
of  authority.  When  we  turn  back  a  little  in  the  same 
Gospel  to  xvii.  18,  we  read  the  intercessory  prayer  of 
Christ,  not  only  for  his  immediate  disciples  already  be- 
lieving on  him,  but  for  all  others  given  to  him  to  be  re- 
deemed who  would  come  to  believe  on  him  through  the 
word  to  be  preached  in  the  gospel ;  we  see  the  same 
particle  of  similitude  "  as,"  expressing  beyond  all  ques- 
tion the  relation  between  the  parties  sending,  and  not  at 
all  between  the  parties  sent,  in  the  sense  of  rank  and 
similarity  of  power,  except  in  the  universal  priesthood 
of  all  believers  :  "As  thou  hast  sent  me  into  the  world, 
even  so  liave  I  sent  them  into  the  world." 

V.  The   inferiority  of  ceremony  to   substance   or  a 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE   OF  SUCCESSION.       213 

formal    ordinatiou    to  the  faithfulness    and    the  al)ilitj 
which  deserve  its  recognition  may  be  illustrated  in  the 
history  of  a  distinct  class  of  disciples  between  apostles 
and   elders,    properly  styled    "  the    ministry    of  gifts," 
which  may  be  traced  through  all  biblical  history  of  the 
Church,  and  perhaps  "alway,  even  to  the  end  of  the 
world."     Like    the    apostles,    this    ministry — including 
prophets  and  evangelists,  at  least— began  without  any 
form  of  ordination  and  tarried  like  them  at  Jerusalem 
until  they  would  be  endued  with  power  from  on  high. 
Power  came  from    the   Holy  Ghost,  according   to  the 
promise  of  our  Lord,  immediately,  in  the  form  of  gifts 
or  charisms  which  de  fado  commissioned  them  to  speak 
with  other  tongues  than  their  own  the  wonderful  works 
of  God.     This  many-tongued  ministry  went  forth,  in- 
cluding male  and  female  missionaries — the  men  to  preach 
with  full  authority  and  the  women  to  pray  and  prophesy 
with  veiled  heads  and  faces ;  the  men  to  supplement  the 
apostolic  office  in  the  capacity  of  prophets  and  evangelists 
and  messengers,  the  women  to  aid  the  ministry  of  orders 
as   exigences  would  call  them,  to  help  in  private  and 
social  teaching  and  adapting  a  diaconate   to  the  wants 
of  humanity  then.     Even  the  condensed  annals  of  in- 
spiration  make   illustrious   a   number  of  these  devout 
men  and  women  who  composed  the  ministry  of  gifts — 
Barsabas,  the  candidate  with  Matthias  for  the  vacancy 
made  by  the  fall  and  death  of  Judas,  Ananias  of  Damas- 
cus, Apollos,  Aquila  and  Pri.^cilla,  Barnabas,  "  men  of 
Cyprus  and  Cyrene,"  evangelizing  Antioch  and  giving 
there  the  name  of  Christian  to  the  Church,  Philip  and 
his   four  "prophesying   daughters,"  Stephen,   the  first 
martyr,  who  was  said  to  be  "full  of  faith  and  of  the 
Holy  Ghost "  when  elected  by  direction  of  the  apostles 


214  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

to  superiuteixl  the  deacons,  and  was  so  admitted  to  an 
office  in  the  ministry  of  orders. 

Much  more  might  be  gleaned  in  sacred  history  of  the 
great  service  to  Christ  and  his  ecclesia,  both  the  old  and 
the  new,  by  this  intermediate  and  supplemental  order  in 
Church  economy,  which  never  had  a  norm  of  ordination 
from  the  hands  of  men,  or  other  designation  to  a  holy 
calling  than  possession  of  the  special  and  heavenly  gift. 
In  Old-Testament  times  the  stated  instructor  in  the  syna- 
gogue, Avhether  priest  or  Levite  or  elder,  would  give 
place  to  any  one  who  came  along  "  in  the  spirit  and  dem- 
onstration of  a  prophet"  to  teach  and  preach  to  the 
ordinary  assembly ;  and  this  usage  was  evidently  con- 
tinued in  the  New-Testament  time,  accounting  for  the 
freedom  of  our  Lord,  and  of  his  apostles  after  him,  to 
teach  and  to  preach  in  the  synagogue  before  its  actual 
conversion  to  Christianity.  Thus  the  ecclesiastical  insti- 
tute of  the  Bible  entertained  in  both  economies  a  ministry 
of  peculiar  and  extraordinary  endowment  whose  cre- 
dentials were  neither  parchment  nor  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  but  the  true  substance  of  all  ordination — endow- 
ment by  the  Spirit  of  God  with  adequate  ability  and 
loyal  faithfulness  to  the  trust  of  truth. 

Here  we  may  well  observe  that  it  was  always  sup- 
plemental to  the  two  conspicuously-appointed  minis- 
tries— that  of  apostles,  who  were  extraordinary  and 
transient,  and  that  of  elders,  who  were  ordinary  and 
permanent.  Whilst  the  former  were  in  the  field  the 
charisms  of  Pentecost  supplied  them  with  prophets  and 
evangelists  who  were  so  eminently  helpful  to  the  aposto- 
late — the  one  class  expounding  the  law  and  the  prophets 
as  luminously  fulfilled  in  the  history  of  Jesus,  predicting 
the  future,  also,  in  so  far  as  the  forecast  would  be  for  the 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.        215 

furtherance  of  the  gospel  and  the  safety  of  believers ; 
the  other  class,  evangelists,  acting  as  deputy  apostles  in 
laying  the  foundations  of  the  Church  in  barbarous  coun- 
tries and  in  adjusting  its  primordial  organizations  every- 
where. On  the  other  hand,  auxiliary  to  the  ministry 
of  orders,  we  see  on  the  sacred  page  how  lustrous  the 
gifts  of  Philip  and  Stephen  made  ordination,  even  to 
the  humble  vocation  of  serving  tables,  which  they  had 
assumed  in  superintendence  at  the  bidding  of  the  people. 
So  much  did  the  shining  gifts  of  two  out  of  "  the  seven  " 
exalt  the  deacon's  office,  and,  of  course,  honor  its  ordina- 
tion, that  soon  in  subsequent  history  the  bishops,  finding 
associated  elders  an  obstruction  to  their  progress  of  am- 
bition, took  into  their  confidence  and  favor  the  deacons 
and  elevated  the  whole  order  to  the  rank  of  preachers, 
multiplying  the  one  lowly  deaconship  by  three — sub- 
deacons,  deacons  and  archdeacons.  This  extravagance, 
though  without  warrant,  is  evidence  in  history  that  the 
drift  of  a  ministry  without  ordination  is  toward  the  en- 
hancement of  orders  instead  of  being  adverse  to  them. 
Being  supplementary  in  its  usefulness  to  the  permanent 
as  well  as  the  transient  ministries  appointed  by  our  Lord, 
the  fair  presumption  is  that  this  ministry  of  gifts  will 
continue  its  opportune  returning  till  the  end  of  time. 
The  glorious  ministration  of  the  Spirit  must  ever  be 
free,  sovereign  and  unsearchable.  Compared  to  the 
wind,  which  "  bloweth  where  it  listeth,"  is  the  "  resi- 
due " — or,  as  we  say  familiarly,  the  reserve — of  might 
and  good  pleasure  which  he  retains  in  the  dispensation 
of  gifts.  Variety  has  always  distinguished  his  agency 
alike  in  garnishing  the  heavens  and  in  starring  the 
churches  on  earth.  Doubtless  the  Holy  Ghost  will 
uphold  the  regularity  of  ordination  as  it  is  defined  in 


216  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

his  own  word,  estimating  qualifications  more  than  per- 
sons and  substance  more  than  ceremony,  ability  and 
faithfulness  more  than  their  inauguration  itself  in  office; 
but  it  may  be  his  pleasure  to  dispense  with  ordination 
altogether  when  it  pretends  too  much.  When,  being 
aggrieved  by  the  emulations  of  Chi'istiau  men  aspiring 
to  the  dignity  of  office  for  its  own  sake,  he  left  ordina- 
tion in  their  hands  to  work  out  its  own  traditions,  how 
quickly  did  it  compromise  the  substance  of  which  it  was 
a  symbol !  In  th6  time  of  Ignatius  the  ordained  pres- 
byter-bishop was  only  primus  inter  pares ;  in  the  time 
of  Irenseus,  a  century  later,  he  was  the  centre  and  de- 
positary of  orthodox  truth ;  another  century  on,  in  the 
time  of  Cyprian,  he  was  a  vicegerent  for  Christ  him- 
self: "  the  Church  is  built  upon  the  bishops  "  as  well  as 
upon  the  apostles  themselves ;  then  came  diocesan  bishops 
to  supersede  and  to  suppress  all  presbyter-bishops,  mo- 
nopolizing apostolic  virtue  and  making  ordination  in 
itself  a  sacramental  rite;  and  now  may  not  ordination 
itself  be  suspended  on  account  of  such  perversion,  and 
the  gospel  have  a  free  course  without  it  for  a  time  or 
times  until  it  be  reformed  ?  It  would  be  an  irreverent 
presumption  for  us  to  conjecture  how  the  Spirit  of  truth 
and  holiness  will  restore  succession  throughout  Christen- 
dom to  the  simplicity  and  the  significance  of  its  original 
prescription  by  Paul  to  Timothy;  but  facts  in  modern 
times  and  the  times  of  our  own  generation  constrain  us 
to  believe  that  a  ministry  of  gifts  without  formal  ordi- 
nation at  all  is  now  and  then  sent  into  the  field  for  this 
very  purpose  of  teaching  the  world  what  succession 
ought  to  be  in  its  main  prerequisites  of  spiritual  and 
superior  gifts  imparted  to  the  faithful.  We  need  not 
mention  the   names  of  lay-evangelists  who   by  speech 


THE  TRUE  DOCTRINE  OF  SUCCESSION.        217 

aud  song  at  this  day  attract  millious  iu  America  and  iu 
Europe  to  the  preaching  of  the  gospel  and  its  becoming 
melodies,  nor  the  names  of  renowned  theologians,  erudite 
masters,  ecclesiastical  dignitaries,  artists,  scientists,  phi- 
losophei-s  aud  learned  professors  of  every  kind  who  have 
hung  on  the  lips  of  these  ambassadors  with  delight  and 
profit,  recognizing  a  call  by  "  the  common  people,  who 
hear  them  gladly,"  as  indicating  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost, 
with  silent  approbation  aud  wonder. 

And  what  are  the  results  of  this  phenomenal  ministry 
to  be  gathered  up  already  ?  Not  by  any  means  what 
was  feared  at  the  beginning — that  this  following  of  un- 
ordaiued  men  would  unsettle  the  whole  mystery  of 
induction  to  the  sacred  office,  cheapen  the  succession, 
disparage  the  solemnity  of  its  vows  aud  level  to  the 
dust  the  safeguai-ds  of  clerical  right  and  authority  in 
the  premises.  The  reverse  of  all  such  apprehension 
has  been  realized.  The  true  doctrine  of  succession  was 
never  so  well  understood,  nor  the  insignificance  of  form 
and  routine  compared  with  the  superlative  value  of 
substance  in  head  and  heart  together,  ability  and  faith- 
fulness conjoined  and  the  immediate  impulse  of  the 
Holy  Spirit,  as  it  would  seem,  abiding  with  his  people 
to  renovate  prescriptions  of  his  word  and  require  them 
to  be  honored  in  the  spirit  as  well  as  in  the  letter  of  the 
ministry,  and  as  a  trust  more  than  as  a  heritage.  Prep- 
aration for  the  ministry  has  been  elevated  and  enlarged, 
theological  seminaries  crowded  more  than  ever  and  post- 
graduates returning  to  prolong  and  extend  the  training 
of  gifts  and  the  acquisition  of  resources  for  the  work 
of  the  faithful.  The  stiffest  conservatism,  also,  has 
been  mobilized  in  many  places,  and  good  men,  emerging 
from  the  chancel,  have  proceeded  through  aisles,  transept 


218  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  portals  with  familiar  words  of  exhortation,  without 
a  book  in  hand,  to  reach  the  hearts  of  inquiring  and 
impenitent  men.  These  results,  whether  or  not  due 
entirely  to  the  adventure  of  exceptional  gifts  for  the 
ministry  through  this  and  other  lands  at  the  present 
time,  should  satisfy  all  observing  men  that  such  a  mis- 
sion is  not  a  meteor,  to  make  wonder  and  disturbance 
in  its  passage,  but  a  salutary  and  refreshing  breeze  to 
every  pulpit,  blowing  only  form  away  and  making 
more  fragrant  than  ever  the  substance  of  regular  suc- 
cession, faithfulness  and  ability  combined. 

Indeed,  consequences  to  the  Church  other  than  aux- 
iliary and  supplemental  to  regularity  of  form  derived 
from  the  Scriptures  would  prov^e  that  such  a  movement 
of  rare  gifts  must  be  challenged  as  self-sent  rather  than 
as  sent  by  the  Holy  Ghost.  He  is  never  the  author  of 
confusion  or  of  doubt  or  of  indifference  to  rules  of  his 
own  origination.  Frowning  only  on  the  superstitious 
excess  of  bondage  to  rules  themselves,  and  grieved  at 
the  letter  when  the  spirit  is  gone,  he  reserves  for  his 
abode  in  the  Church  the  polity  of  exceptional  refreshing 
and  the  sovereignty  of  working  with  or  without  a  visi- 
ble instrumentality  on  which  we  count,  and  correcting 
our  calculations  by  surprising  them  with  new  develop- 
ments of  his  own  power  and  the  stability  of  nothing 
chartered  by  man  for  which  he  has  not  given  his  own 
Avord  of  inspiration.  Long,  therefore,  as  there  will  be 
a  standing  ministry  of  regular  ordination  in  the  Church, 
there  will  be  watching  by  the  eternal  Spirit  to  keep  it 
clean,  simple,  substantial  and  true,  or  to  winnow,  test 
and  restore  it  by  an  improvised  ministry  of  gifts  with- 
out ordination  at  all  except  the  impulse  of  his  own 
breathing  and  the  term  at  his  own  recall. 


CHAPTER    IX. 
PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

THE  ministry  of  orders  are  the  permanent  officers. 
The  summary  distinction  of  these  given  in  Scripture 
(Phil.  i.  1)  is  "  bishops  and  deacons."  The  former  is 
twofold,  consisting  of  those  that  have  oversight  in  both 
preaching  and  ruling,  and  those  in  ruling  only  or  chiefly. 
The  latter  is  also  twofold  in  the  distinction  of  male  and 
female  comprised  in  the  one  word  "  deacon,"  which  is 
both  male  and  female  in  the  original  term.  There  is  no 
reckoning  of  era  in  the  permanency  of  spiritual  office  : 
past,  present  and  future  must  be  all  one  duration  for  the 
ecclesia,  which  is  just  an  expression  of  God's  eternal 
purpose.  1  Pet.  i.  2.  A  second  essential  idea  in  per- 
manence must  be  regulation  of  order,  the  formal  in 
organization,  which  is  recognized  in  the  appointed  solem- 
nity of  ordination,  A  third  conception  of  this  per- 
manency must  be  the  subsidiary  nature  of  all  that  is 
extraordinary  in  the  history  of  redemption.  The  tes- 
timony of  apostles,  on  which  the  Church  is  built,  serves 
like  a  foundation  to  support  the  permanency  of  her 
structure  "fitly  joined  together."  The  witnessing  and 
working  ministry  of  gifts  corroborated  that  testimony 
and  worked  out  the  re-establishment  of  permanent  order 
as  a  task  assigned  to  them  by  apostles  :  "  For  this  cause 
left  I  thee  in  Crete,  that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the 
things  that  are  wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city, 
as  I  had  appointed  thee,"  wrote  Paid  to  Titus. 

219 


220  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

But  extraordinary  gifts  are  not  all  supernatural  or 
belonging  to  one  epoch  of  spiritual  Christianity,  as  we 
have  already  noticed.  There  is  a  natural  side  of  sanc- 
tified endowment  not  commissioned  by  man  and  not 
recognized  by  his  induction  with  hands  laid  on.  The 
actuating  impulse  of  the  Holy  Ghost  may  at  the  sover- 
eign pleasure  of  his  wisdom  send,  without  formality, 
rare  abilities,  exceptional  and  opportune,  to  vivify  the 
formal  and  resettle  the  settled  and  stir  the  lethargy  of 
habit  with  new  awakening  and  heartfelt  return  to  the 
old  simplicity  of  the  gospel.  Obviously,  the  need  and 
aim  of  such  evangelism,  when  it  is  genuine,  must  be,  as 
we  have  intimated  already,  to  enhance  the  value  and 
appreciate  the  stability  of  all  inspired  ordinations  in 
Scripture,  Otherwise,  if  these  lay  evangelists  become 
radical  enthusiasts,  disparaging  the  ministry  of  orders, 
dispensing  with  ordination  on  purpose,  building  churches 
for  themselves,  claiming  ''  the  keys  "  to  open  and  to  shut 
with  ritual  authority,  and  handling  as  they  please  and 
where  they  please  the  instituted  symbols  of  our  faith — 
baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper — then  we  challenge  the 
reality  in  them  of  a  divine  legation  by  the  Spirit  of 
God,  and  turn  away  from  self-sent  emissaries  who  mar 
the  gospel  of  the  kingdom  with  envy,  disturbance  and 
strife  in  the  long  run. 

Here  the  New-Testament  ministry  of  orders  must 
appear  the  standard  and  umpire  and  determination  in 
"discerning  spirits"  till  the  end  of  time.  The  disloy- 
alty which  would  supersede  their  seat  after  gaining  their 
ear,  and  rival  their  cathedral  with  tabernacles  for  the 
multitude  around,  and  claim  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom 
as  unofficial  in  the  propagation  and  sent  by  those  who 
send  themselves,  as  well  without  as  with  the  representa- 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    221 

tive  commissiou  which  has  the  promise,  "  I  am  with 
you  alway  even  unto  the  eud  of  the  world/' — must  be 
ephemeral  as  the  morniug  cloud  and  flower  of  the  grass. 
Good  may  be  gathered  into  the  barns,  many  of  the 
saved  may  be  added  to  the  Church,  by  such  impro- 
vised evangelism,  but  it  is  a  meteor,  and  there  is  no 
continuance  available  as  a  churchly  institute.  A  re- 
freshing breeze  cannot  be  localized  and  fixed  without 
stagnation  and  malaria  to  be  engendered.  The  extra- 
ordinary, which  is  not  needed,  cannot  become  ordinary 
without  renouncing  its  own  justification  in  coming  upon 
the  Church  self-sent  and  unordained.  The  credentials 
which  exceptional  gifts  confer  alone  expire  in  the  dis- 
content of  an  evangelist  who  would  do  more  than  his 
proper  work. 

In  tlie  primitive  time  a  special  ministry  of  gifts  did 
exchange,  in  many  instances,  no  doubt,  their  itinerating 
errand  for  a  settlement  in  some  particular  charge  or  care, 
and,  doing  so,  entered  into  orders  with  regular  ordina- 
tion. Thus,  Philip  and  Stephen,  when  chosen  to  the 
oversight  of  deacons,  were  admitted  to  the  order  in 
formal  ordination.  Barnabas  and  Saul,  likewise — 
though  the  latter  was  called  to  be  an  apostle — were 
separated  by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  the  divine  command 
to  a  special  missionary- work  in  Asia  Minor,  and  were 
ordained  for  it  by  the  Presbytery  of  Antioch.  So 
the  most  prominent  of  the  apostles — Peter  and  John, 
for  example  —  would  emphasize  in  their  Epistles  the 
elder,  couched  in  their  apostleship.  "  Who  am  also  an 
elder,"  said  the  one ;  "  The  elder  to  the  elect  lady,"  said 
the  other.  The  trend,  therefore,  of  apostles  and  of 
apostolic  men  of  supernatural  gifts  was  directly  and 
constantly  toward  the  eldership  as  a  regular  succession. 


222  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

The  extraordinary,  when  supernatural,  came  to  make 
the  ordinary  more  important  and  permanent;  and  shall 
the  extraordinary,  when  it  is  but  natural  endowment,  be 
allowed  to  drift  in  the  opposite  direction,  disparaging 
the  ordinary  as  perfunctory  duluess,  sneering  at  ordina- 
tion as  an  idle  ceremony,  and  reducing  at  length  the 
transient  itinerancy  which  goes  without  ordination  to 
the  rival  fixedness  of  another  denomination?  Such  a 
genesis  of  natural  gifts  cannot  be  read  in  the  natural 
history  of  permanent  office. 

But  we  do  read  of  a  standing  ministry  in  each  par- 
ticular church  remaining  as  a  permanent  change  in  the 
condition  of  Christian  orders — so  much,  indeed,  that 
the  name  "church,"  as  we  have  seen,  became  narrow 
enough  to  denote  a  local  assemblage  of  worshipping 
believers,  though  ever  wide  enough,  also,  to  express  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  itself  upon  the  earth  in  its  organ- 
ization, multiform  as  this  might  be  in  the  unity  of  co- 
operation. In  the  old  dispensation  there  was  no  dis- 
tinctive ministry  of  the  word  localized  and  fixed  in  one 
particular  habitation.  The  nearest  approach  to  a  stand- 
ing ministry  in  settlements  then  was  in  the  forty-eight 
stations  of  Levitical  distribution  ov'er  the  land  for 
the  purposes  of  national  instruction,  making  the  tribe 
itinerant,  more  or  less,  among  the  families  of  Israel. 
Elders  of  the  synagogue  waited  for  the  Levite  or  the 
prophet  to  come  along,  and  officiated  in  the  service  of 
instruction  only  when  itinerants  fiiiled  to  appear ;  so  it 
seems  to  have  been  for  some  twenty  years  in  the  open- 
ing history  of  New-Testament  organizations. 

But  when,  at  length,  the  miraculous  outfit  of  Chris- 
tianity was  done,  apostles,  prophets  and  evangelists  hav- 
ing finished   their  work  of  immediate  witnessing  and 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    223 

fulfilment  of  prophecy  and  inditing  canonical  inspira- 
tion, the  incidental  task  of  teaching,  which  had  always 
pertained  to  the  elders'  bench,  became  the  mighty  burden 
of  our  Master's  great  commission  devolving  on  the 
elders  everywhere  "  to  teach  all  nations."  The  press- 
ure of  this  great  command  must  do  what  vast  responsi- 
bility of  any  kind  will  always  do — produce  division  of 
labor  and  multiply  the  varieties  of  function  in  the 
exercise  of  office.  "  Who  is  sufficient  for  these  things?" 
Even  the  apostles,  "  endued  with  power  from  on  high," 
had  to  call  for  help  in  "differences  of  ministration" 
and  "diversities  of  operation"  and  "all  utterance" 
which  the  selfsame  Spirit  that  armed  them  with  super- 
natural force  did  work  in  all  other  disciples,  male  and 
female,  of  that  original  band  ;  and  when  the  mightiness 
of  miracle  at  length  departed,  leaving  the  great  com- 
mission on  a  representative  eldership  whose  natural 
abilities  had  been  trained  in  governing  and  directing 
only  or  chiefly,  shall  Ave  have  no  division  of  labor  any 
more  to  be  recognized  among  the  officers  divinely  ap- 
pointed ? 

Go  to  the  government  at  Washington  and  survey  the 
multitude  of  divided  and  subdivided  industries — depart- 
ments, bureaus,  scribes,  almost  innumerable — which  are 
indispensable  auxiliaries  of  the  grand  episcopacy  in 
State  tiiat  governs  the  nation  ;  return,  after  an  interval 
of  one  decade,  and  see  how  much  increased  the  number 
and  the  variety  of  the  functions  become  as  the  nation 
spreads  her  occupation  of  the  continent.  We  have  here 
a  fair  analogy  of  the  effect  which  our  vast  commission 
on  the  Church  to  spread  her  gospel  occupation  over  all 
the  world  must  have  in  dividing  and  subdividing  her 
multiplied  instrumentalities  in  the  ministry  of  orders. 


224  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Take,  for  example,  that  one  qualification  of  the  pres- 
byter-bishop who  is  familiarly  called  "elder" — "apt  to 
teach."  1  Tim.  iii.  2.  We  see  in  the  original  terra  so 
rendered  indefinite  extension  of  meaning — public,  social, 
family,  private,  teaching  —  and  that  both  active  and 
passive,  teaching  and  teachable.  Accordingly,  we  see 
now  through  some  ten  Boards  of  administration,  man- 
aged by  ministers  and  elders,  the  labor  subdivided  which 
the  Church  is  required  by  the  great  commission  of  her 
Lord  to  undertake  for  the  conversion  of  the  world. 
And  even  all  these,  with  their  chairmen,  secretaries, 
treasurers  and  agents,  are  but  one  branch  in  the  vast 
ramification  of  sacred  toil.  We  must  contemplate  the 
pulpit,  the  press,  the  school,  the  seminaiy,  the  college, 
for  another  host  at  work  under  the  great  pressure  of  the 
Saviour's  ascending  behest,  and  these  distinctions  multi- 
plied as  the  work  goes  on  to  prosper  in  the  sublime 
evolution  of  practical  wisdom  itself 

Why,  then,  should  we  be  hindered  at  the  very  begin- 
ning, and  on  the  inspired  page  itself,  by  the  artifice  of 
criticism,  from  receiving  and  establishing  a  division  of 
labor  on  the  elders'  bench  which  was  inevitable  as  the 
promise  of  perpetual  presence  by  our  Master  was  sure? 
When  the  ministers  of  "  gifts  "  were  withdrawn,  all  the 
elders  ordained  could  not  preach,  though  they  could 
teach  in  the  family  and  "  rule  well "  in  their  traditional 
authoritv  for  this  function.  When  such  of  them  as  had 
the  ability  and  the  desire  to  assume  the  great  super- 
venient commission  to  preach  at  home  or  abroad,  they 
were  designated  accordingly  by  their  fellow-elders,  Avith 
consent  of  the  people,  and  doubtless  with  some  solem- 
nity of  form  in  ordination  to  indicate  their  separation 
from  others  to  a  ministry  of  the  word  which  was  to  be 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    225 

all-ongrossiug  in  its  duties.  Here,  then,  is  the  first 
divisiou  of  labor  by  the  weight  of  an  imperative  gospel 
devolved  on  the  eldership  of  all  dispensations,  engaging 
some  to  teach  mainly  and  to  rule  enough  also  to  sustain 
this  teaching  with  proper  authority,  engaging  others  to 
remain  as  they  were  at  ruling  chiefiy,  and  teaching  the 
rudiments  of  religion  enough  to  sustain  the  claims  of 
their  function  as  Ciiristian  rulers.  The  lowly  rulers  of 
the  ecclesia  who  had  for  ages  been  really  "  servants  of 
all "  in  looking  out  for  teachers  to  be  invited  or  allowed 
from  time  to  time  are  now  to  be  made  apostolic  teachers 
themselves  along  with  ruling,  and  remain  in  their  places 
until  the  divine  Spirit  would  move  them  to  go  else- 
where. Others  of  them,  unable  or  unwilling  to  be 
given  wholly  to  preach  and  propagate  the  gospel,  would 
abide  in  their  old  calling.  Not  a  shred  of  diocesan 
episcopacy  came  fi'om  apostolic  hands,  as  we  shall  see 
again  more  exactly.  Apostles  made  elders ;  the  people 
made  bishops.  Apostles  prescribed  the  qualifications  to 
be  discriminated  in  their  choice;  the  people  controlled 
the  choice  by  sufllVage  in  the  respective  localities,  and 
thus  came  the  title  of  "bishoj)"  in  distinction  which 
the  elder  chosen  gained  by  votes  of  the  people  and  his 
fellow-presbyters,  and  which  denoted  only  the  oversight 
of  a  parish  with  the  ordination  of  an  elder. 

In  devolving  on  a  bench  of  elders  the  paramount  and 
permanent  office  of  teaching  and  preaching,  parochial 
episcopate  and  itinerant  evangelism  included,  we  must 
contemplate  the  comparative  inadequacy  of  officers  who 
had  been  chosen  only  for  their  practical  wisdom  in  man- 
aging men  and  things,  who,  in  the  majority  of  persons, 
would  probably  be  unlearned  or  lack  the  oratorical  power 
to  persuade  men.    And,  standing  at  the  close  of  miracles 

15 


226  CHURCH  Government. 

in  laying  the  foundations  of  the  Church  and  extending 
her  limits,  the  departure  of  apostles  and  withdrawal  of 
miraculous  gifts  would  altogether  dismay  an  ordinary 
eldership  habituated  only  to  serve  in  ruling  under  a 
ministry  of  gifts.  But  an  obvious  expedient  was  at 
hand,  natural,  reasonable  and  inevitable,  the  classifica- 
tion of  elders — some  called  to  teach  and  preach  in  public 
because  of  suitable  endowments,  and  to  be  called,  prop- 
erly, "teaching  elders,"  and  the  others,  remaining  at 
their  post,  to  be  called  "  ruling  elders."  Yet  the 
preachers  were  not  to  be  excluded  from  rule  nor  the 
residuary  class  of  rulers  from  private  or  social  tea(^hing 
as  capacity  and  occasion  might  warrant.  Thus  the  two 
classes  would  coalesce  and  co-operate,  and  their  meeting 
together  in  council  would  make  a  Presbyterian  Session. 

Permanency  of  the  Teaching  Elder. 

No  office  among  men  has  ever  been  designated  by  so 
many  different  names  as  that  of  the  Christian  minister 
whom  the  apostles  named  "  elder  "  and  "  bishop."  The 
tracing  of  its  functions  through  Holy  Scripture  will  dis- 
cover two  kinds  in  the  nomenclature — the  adjective  and 
the  metaphorical,  the  former,  of  wider  significance,  de- 
noting the  nature  of  the  office  in  general,  such  as  bishop, 
elder,  messenger,  minister,  preacher  and  teacher;  the 
latter,  of  special  and  deeper  significance,  denoting  with 
the  force  of  analogy  some  one  characteristic,  such  as 
ambassador,  angel,  builder,  pastor,  ruler,  soldier,  stew- 
ard, workman.  All  these,  but  never  pinest  (^hpeo^). 
This  name  belongs  only  to  the  officers  of  an  unfinished 
religion — one  of  types  and  shadows.  It  has  lost  all 
official  import  in  the  Christian  system  since  the  actual 
advent  and  sacrifice  of  our  eternal  Hioh  Priest  himself. 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    227 

It  is  now  of  common  use  again,  attached  to  all  true 
believers,  of  both  dispensations,  before  and  after  an 
Aaronical  priesthood,  Moses  and  Peter  both  affirming. 
(1  Pet.  ii.  9  compared  with  Ex.  xix.  6.)  The  compres- 
sion of  "  presbyter  "  into  this  word  "  priest "  ever  since 
the  sarcasm  of  Milton — "presbyter  is  only  priest  writ 
large" — has  been  discussed  by  scholars,  though  retained 
in  Anglican  forms,  and  is  obsolete  in  all  churches  where 
there  is  no  Judaism  of  literal  altar  and  sacrifice  to  be 
consistent.  The  long  list  of  names  we  gather  in  the 
New  Testament  for  the  Christian  minister  indicates 
abundantly  the  value  and  sufficiency  of  this  office  for 
the  use  of  the  Church  in  all  the  ends  of  her  mission 
while  time  endures,  and  makes  the  presumption,  there- 
fore, that  it  must  be  a  standing  ministry,  permanent  as 
it  is  important — a  relative  necessity  always,  transmitting 
itself  in  the  culture  of  piety  and  knowledge  ever  advan- 
cing in  the  future. 

The  permanency  of  this  office  may  be  considered  in 
a  threefold  aspect — the  office  itself,  continued  till  the  end 
of  the  world ;  the  tenure  of  it,  till  the  end  of  life ;  and 
the  duration  of  a  bishopric  in  the  pastoral  relation,  fixed 
as  long  as  the  Spirit  and  the  providence  of  God  will 
favor  a  continuance. 

1.  The  office  itself  is  abiding,  and  it  is  important  that 
we  pause  a  little  to  justify  what  seems  to  be  self-evident 
in  its  nature — a  standing  ministry  as  a  distinct  order  of 
men  invested  by  the  authority  of  Christ  with  the  ordi- 
narily exclusive  right  to  dispense  the  ordinances  of 
divine  appointment.  Not  only  does  the  mystic  enthusi- 
asm of  the  Quaker  still  insist  that  no  formulated  ministry 
is  needed,  but  other  sectaries  of  new  denomination  arise 
along  with  a  philosophic  radicalism  diffijsed  by  Neandor 


228  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

to  antagonize  the  extremes  of  popery  and  prelacy,  and  to 
reduce  clerical  orders  from  traditional  ordination  at  the 
hands  of  those  already  in  office  to  a  merely  conventional 
division  of  labor  in  the  Church  at  the  hands  of  the 
people  themselves,  without  representation.  We  must 
argue  against  the  discontinuance  of  an  official  ministry 
conferred  in  regular  succession. 

(1)  The  promise    annexed  to    the   great   commission 
"  Lo  I  am  with  you    alway,"  etc.,  assuredly    indicates 
durability  in  office.     The  apostles,  we  have  seen,  com- 
mitting their  trust  to  others,  left  the  stage  long  since, 
and,  unless  the  Church  and  the  world  be  entirely  changed, 
in  the  condition  of  human  nature  there  must  be  continued 
the  same  instrumentality  that  was  inaugurated  at  their 
departure.     With  significant  regard  for  succession,  Peter 
and  John,  the  apostles,  defined  themselves,  in  different 
forms  of  expression,  as  elders  also,  combining  with  the 
extraordinary  capacity  of  original  witnesses  the  ordinary 
office  of  ruling  in  the  Church  that  was  ever  to  continue 
inseparable  from  preaching  the  word  and  discipling  all 
nations.     It  is  not  the  extraordinary  and  transient,  but 
the  ordinary  and  permanent,  which  inherits  the  fulfil- 
ment of  that  ubiquitous  and  everlasting  promise  uphold- 
ing the  ministry.     Until,  at  least,  all  men   have  been 
baptized  and  indoctrinated  to  a  degree  of  adequate  en- 
lightenment and  obedience  to  the  faith  this  burden  of 
the  Saviour  devolves  to  evoke  and  ordain  the  teaching 
elder.     To  dispense  with  such  an  order  now,  or  at  any 
time  before  the  consummation,  is  to  condemn  the  original 
investiture  as    unwise    or   devoid   of  the  forecast  with 
which,  it  is  admitted,  even  uninspired  men  may  provide 
institutions  lasting  as  time. 

(2)  The  diction  of  catalogues  given  us  by  inspiration, 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    229 

iu  which  offices  and  functions  are  minutely  detailed, 
covering  all  time  and  mingling  together  extraordinary 
and  ordinary  officers,  miraculous  endowment  and  com- 
mon expediency,  must  always  leave  upon  the  mind  of  a 
candid  reader  a  sense  of  perpetuity  resulting  from  that 
profusion  of  ascension-gifts  at  the  initial  crisis  of  a 
kingdom  "  ordered  in  all  things."  The  two  most  com- 
plete, if  not  exhaustive,  enumerations  are  found  in  1  Cor. 
xii.  28  and  Eph.  iv.  11.  The  former  gives  the  chief 
ministry  thus  :  "  God  hath  set  some  in  the  Church,  first 
apostles,  secondarily  prophets,  thirdly  teachers,"  the  con- 
nective particles  following,  "  after  that "  and  "  then,"  de- 
tailing other  functionaries  under  abstract  terms  indicat- 
ing manifold  uses  iu  the  Church,  natural  and  super- 
natural. The  other  passage  cited  is,  "And  he  gave  some, 
apostles  ;  and  some,  prophets;  and  some,  evangelists  ;  and 
some,  pastors  and  teachers ;  for  the  perfecting  of  the  saints, 
for  the  work  of  the  ministry,  for  the  edifying  of  the  body 
of  Christ."  The  fair  conclusion  from  both  quotations 
must  be  that  " pastors  and  teachers"  remain  the  appoint- 
ment by  divine  authority — a  selection,  also,  by  the  Head 
of  the  Church — "some,"  not  all  the  people  alike,  "  some" 
qualified  and  consecrated  to  "  the  work  of  the  ministry." 
(3)  The  errand  of  extraordinary  officers  in  the  forma- 
tion of  a  Christian  Church  was  to  found  a  perpetual 
testimony  and  furnish  ordinary  officers,  unlike  them- 
selves in  being  permanent,  as  they  were  transient. 
Apostles  and  evangelists  were  confessedly  engaged  iu 
laying  foundations  for  the  future  and  in  building  on  a 
rock  the  structure  which  He  who  is  the  same  yesterday, 
to-day  and  for  ever  called  "  my  Church."  These  elders, 
beyond  a  question,  were  the  teachers  they  left  to  abide. 
No  other  way  of  ministration  is  hinted,  nor  change,  nor 


230  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

grade,  nor  level,  nor  end.  If,  indeed,  apostles  have  not 
passed  away,  but  have  transmitted  their  own  ecclesiasti- 
cal rank  to  a  line  of  successors  in  authority,  then  our 
inference  here  is  nothing;  for  the  power  deputed  orig- 
inally to  provide  a  standing  ministry,  being  extant  and 
predominating  still,  may  shift  the  organization  made 
at  first,  suppress  the  eldership  at  pleasure,  exalt  the 
deacon,  exclude  the  people  and  make  all  things  un- 
certain. 

(4)  The  unity  "of  the  Church,  through  all  dispensa- 
tions identical,  needs  a  living  institute  as  well  as  a 
canonical  word  to  thread  her  form  through  all  genera- 
tions. None  but  the  office  of  presbyter  can  do  this. 
The  patriarchal,  the  Levitical,  the  Christian,  as  chief, 
the  Greek,  the  Latin,  the  Reformed,  in  lines  of  sub- 
division, have  all  thus  far  had  the  elder,  of  some  name, 
as  an  integral  factor  of  government  in  some  degree,  and 
the  presumption  is  fair  that  the  Angel  of  the  covenant 
is  with  this  office  till  the  end  of  the  world.  We  hear 
it  claimed  in  these  days  that  no  creed  or  doctrinal 
basis  can  be  formed  to  reunite  Christianity,  and  that  we 
should  look  to  a  certain  external  form  of  government 
as  the  only  band  of  unification  that  is  practicable  and 
expedient ;  but  if  the  polity  proposed  has  repressed  the 
eldership,  teaching  and  ruling,  and  substituted  the  di- 
ocesan for  a  centre,  it  has  lost  the  connection  of  Church 
visibility  in  Scripture,  preferred  Nicene  to  Bible  Chris- 
tianity and  broken  the  link  of  Ne\y-Testament  with 
Old-Testament  ecclesia ;  and  the  claim  is  preposterous. 

(5)  It  belongs  to  the  analogy  of  grace  in  its  kingdom 
on  earth  to  be  magnified  by  visible  inadequacy  of  means, 
and  therefore  to  intrust  the  treasure  of  saving  truth  by 
which  the   world  is  discipled  to  some  earthen  vessels 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.     231 

which  stand  midway  in  representation  between  monar- 
chic authority  and  the  multitude  governed.  Reserved 
to  the  former,  the  world  might  reckon  that  an  absolute 
unity  of  administration  will  explain  the  perpetual  con- 
servation of  Christianity.  Deposited  with  the  latter, 
men  would  suppose  they  are  naturally  religious  beings, 
and  that  the  gospel  of  this  kingdom  descends  by  the 
force  of  sentiment  in  the  bosom  of  humankind.  But 
the  constitution  of  a  few,  without  concentration  on  the 
one  hand  and  without  diffusion  on  the  other,  conveys 
through  all  succeeding  time  the  presence  of  a  divine 
Head  by  liis  Si)irit,  whose  power  alone  sustains  an  in- 
strumentality so  fragile  and  makes  "  the  foolishness  of 
preaching"  "the  wisdom  of  God  and  the  power  of 
God"  in  the  salvation  of  men.  Thus  the  survivino- 
miracle  of  a  supernatural  preservation  of  our  hope  in 
Christ,  despite  the  weakness,  folly  and  disunion  of 
his  own  adherents  and  heralds,  will  remain  till  "  time 
shall  be  no  longer"  in  the  publication  of  his  grace. 

(6)  The  analogy  of  tradition  also  demands  an  order 
of  live  successors  in  its  trinity  of  safe  and  adequate 
transmission.  Tiie  written  document  and  the  parental 
relation  have  never  sufficed  for  such  transmission,  even 
when  the  former  was  plain  and  the  latter  most  faithful, 
as  under  the  Old-Testament  economy.  Then  the  priest's 
lips  had  to  keep  knowledge,  and  the  peojde  had  to  learn 
the  law  at  his  mouth.  How  much  greater  that  neces- 
sity now,  when  the  inspired  documents  have  become  a 
magazine  which  all  sciolism  seeks  to  corrupt  or  impugn, 
and  the  family  has  become  loosened  by  unrestricted 
affinities  and  world-wide  commerce !  Without  presby- 
ters now  and  ever  to  shed  the  mystery  of  godliness  from 
educated  lips  and  in  language  understood  by  the  people, 


232  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  "established  testimony  and  appointed  law"  might  be 
lost  or  hidden  to  the  children  of  generations  to  come. 

(7)  The  instructions  given  to  elders  indicate  the  per- 
manency of  their  office.  The  charges,  the  duties,  the 
qualifications,  alike  involve  the  indefinite  succession : 
"  The  things  which  thou  hast  heard  of  me,  among 
many  witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful  men, 
who  shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also."  This  definite 
selection  is  evidently  concerned  for  a  future  which  is 
undefined.  The  qualifications  elsewhere  detailed  more 
minutely,  and  suggesting  the  duties  devolved  on  suc- 
cessors, all  imply  succession  while  time  endures.  See 
Tit.  i.  6-9,  where,  identifying  elders  with  bishops, 
the  apostle  anticipates,  with  a  prevision  of  Christian 
life  which  no  perfection  of  culture  can  ever  transcend 
and  no  exigences  of  the  faith  can  ever  give  up,  the 
becoming  accomplishments  of  an  elder's  adaptation : 
"  If  any  be  blameless  ;  the  husband  of  one  wife  ;  hav- 
ing children  not  accused  of  riot  or  unruly ;  not  self- 
willed,  not  soon  angry,  not  given  to  wine,  no  striker, 
not  given  to  filthy  lucre,  a  lover  of  hospitality,  a  lover 
of  good  men,  sober,  just,  holy,  temperate ;  holding  fast 
the  faithful  word  as  he  hath  been  taught,  that  he  may 
be  able,  by  sound  doctrine,  both  to  exhort  and  to  con- 
vince the  gainsayers." 

(8)  The  necessities  of  the  Church  as  a  society  require 
a  standing  ministry.  As  well  may  we  conceive  a  society 
existing  without  rules  to  constitute  and  govern  it  as 
without  selected  representatives  to  expound  and  enforce 
them ;  and  when  we  contemplate  the  social  compact  of 
the  Churcli  as  formed  not  merely  to  exist  continually  as 
she  began  at  the  pristine  organization,  but  to  expand 
immeasurably  and  make  progress  through  the  ages  with 


PERMANENT  OEFWERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    233 

the  constitution  given   by  lier  Founder — as  it  were,  a 
stone   cut  out  without   hands  and    rolling  on   till  the 
whole  earth  is  covered  with  the  magnitude  of  her  de- 
velopment—we may  be  sure  that  the  agencies  which 
propel  the  movement  are  steady  and  constant  as  they 
are  true  in  working  out  an   eternal   purpose.     Merely 
spontaneous  vigor  and  zeal  in  each  member  of  the  vast 
community   of  believers  could   not  avail   for  the  con- 
tinuity ordained.      Individual   responsibility  is  always 
felt  to  be  little  as  the  society  is  large,  and  unavailing  as 
the  work  is  arduous  and  tlie  result  momentous.     Even 
at  the  infancy  of  the  Christian  Church  and  amidst  the 
profusion  of  ardent  impulses  from  Jerusalem  to  Antioch 
and  the  glowing  fellowship    of  proi)hets   and  teachers 
there,  a  call  was  made  from  heaven  for  special  work  to 
be  done  by  special  men  who  were  named  in  the  call : 
"  The  Holy  Ghost  said,  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul 
for  the  work  whereuuto  I  have  called  them."     The  self- 
same Spirit  will  not  now  cease  to  separate  a  special  order 
of  men  to  "  wait  on  ministering,"  when  private  spon- 
taneity has  become  so  inert  and  social  enthusiasm  so 
transient  and  mutable  that  no  missionary  work  on  earth 
is  done  by  deuominations  which  have  no  standing  min- 
istry at  home. 

(9)  Facts  should  be  conclusive  on  this  point.  Office 
implies  gift,  of  which  it  is  the  visible  organ.  The  mul- 
tiplied offices  and  functions  of  office  described  in  the 
primitive  records  of  inspiration  are  to  be  discriminated 
by  facts  only  as  to  their  temporary  or  their  permanent 
nature.  When  supernatural  gifts  or  charisras  of  Pente- 
costal time  ceased  to  be  observed,  the  corresponding 
offices  thereon  were  discontinued.  When  the  ordinary 
ministration  of  the  Spirit  remained  to  endow  spiritual 


234  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

men  with  faithfulness  and  ability  for  teaching  or  for 
ruling,  or  for  both,  the  corresponding  offices  remained 
to  be  filled  and  recognized  perpetually  as  the  ascension- 
gifts  of  Messiah  under  the  glorious  ministration  of  his 
own  Spirit.  It  is  a  divinely-recorded  fact  that  a  min- 
istry of  orders  existed  simultaneously  with  that  of  apos- 
tles and  that  of  gifts  merely;  and  the  drift  of  durability 
in  all  the  arrangements  of  that  crisis  tended  to  make 
the  first  to  be  last  as  well  as  the  last  to  be  first.  The 
immemorial  office  of  the  past  was  ordained  to  be  the 
perpetual  office  of  the  future.  It  is  a  humanly-recorded 
fact  that  under  some  form  and  with  some  degree  of 
power  and  influence  the  elder  has  existed  in  all  the 
historical  churches  of  time,  and  it  is  the  record  of  all 
experience  and  observation  that  the  meeting-house  en- 
thusiasm which  begins  without  a  teaching  eldership 
ordained,  and  which  sits  in  mystic  silence  for  the  Spirit 
to  move  any  man  or  any  woman  to  speak,  at  length 
subsides  and  languishes  without  comparative  duration 
at  all  among  the  visibilities  of  earth. 

II.  The  second  thought  on  the  permanency  of  sacred 
office  is  investment  for  life :  "  It  is  a  snare  to  the  man 
who  devoureth  that  which  is  holy,  and  after  vows  to 
make  inquiry"  (Prov.  xx.  25);  "  Suffiir  not  thy  mouth 
to  cause  thy  flesh  to  sin ;  neither  say  thou  before  the 
angel,  that  it  was  an  error"  (Eccl.  v.  6.);  "Be  thou 
faithful  unto  death,  and  I  will  give  thee  a  crown  of 
life."  Rev.  ii.  10.  Life,  at  the  longest,  is  but  a  brief 
term  for  commission  to  preach  the  everlasting  gospel. 
Soldiers  in  this  warfare  have  no  discharge ;  workmen  on 
this  building  have  no  dismission  ;  watchmen  on  these 
walls  have  no  retirement.  Ministers  even  of  a  transient 
class  were  never  invested  with  their  office  for  a  term  of 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    235 

years,  and  no  one  voluntarily  forsook  it  except,  like 
Denias,  in  swimming  away  from  the  shipwreck  of  his 
faith.  Considerations  which  may  dissuade  a  man  from 
entering  the  ministry  will  not  excuse  him  for  laying  it 
down  at  his  convenience  or  his  pleasure.  Other  parties 
in  the  solemnity  of  his  consecration — God  and  the 
Church,  the  Spirit  and  the  bride — are  not  to  be  con- 
strained merely  by  his  judgment  and  his  will.  His  call 
and  qualifications  have  been  recognized  as  true  and  fit- 
ting by  those  who  are  divinely  appointed  to  judge;  and 
retroaction,  in  the  gravity  of  such  a  matter,  must  unite 
the  same  parties  all  in  the  reversal  of  ordination.  It  is 
not  competent  for  a  presbyter  and  a  Presbytery  to  man- 
age divestment  with  mutual  consent  alone.  "God  is 
judge  of  all."  One  ordinance  of  his  appointment  can 
be  set  aside  only  by  another  of  the  same  authority  and 
suitable  in  its  application  to  such  a  case. 

In  demitting  the  ministry  fault  is  apt  to  be  ascertained 
somewhere.  Ignorance,  inadvertence,  presumption,  hasty 
impulse,  vain  imagination  and  carnal  expedieucy  play 
their  part  on  one  side;  inattention,  impatience,  partisan  in- 
dulgence and  perfunctory  tape  on  the  other  side.  These, 
and  such-like  reprehensible  things,  should  be  touched  with 
some  degree  of  censure  by  the  ordinance  of  discipline. 
It  may  be  slight,  but  it  should  be  something.  Even  a 
motion  to  deliberate  and  inquire  and  to  search  out  the 
cause  in  a  judicatory — which  must  publish  to  the  Church 
and  the  world  a  dissolution  of  solemn  vows  when  it  is 
made — can  scarcely  fail  to  })ut  blame  upon  one  inirty  or 
upon  both  "  before  all,"  with  the  moral  effect  of  rebuke 
for  lightness,  at  least,  in  the  due  solemnities  of  a  spiritual 
administration. 

Without  incurring  censure   men  may  indeed  mistake 


236  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

their  calling.  Talents  may  be  wanting ;  piety  may  be 
doubtful ;  sickness,  obloquy  or  persecution  may  super- 
vene to  diminish  or  destroy  the  usefulness  of  ministers ; 
but  let  them  desist  for  a  time  rather  than  demit  the  office. 
All  discovery  of  unfitness  short  of  censurable  oifence 
must  have  other  recourse  than  voluntary  abandonment 
of  the  calling.  Inadequate  ability — which  might  be 
found  among  angels — must  work  on  with  redoubled 
earnest  and  industry.  Insufficient  piety  must  repair 
to  the  Fountain  of  grace  and  mercy  for  a  sense  of  voca- 
tion and  renewal  of  strength,  and  half  the  qualifications 
which  avail  not  in  one  part  of  the  field  may  succeed  well 
in  another,  for  every  ordained  minister  belongs  to  the 
Church  at  large  iu  his  functions,  and  his  field  is  the 
world. 

Strenuous  persistency  like  this  makes  more  than  man- 
hood in  office :  it  magnifies  the  office  and  extols  the  suf- 
ficiency of  God  only.  And  we  doubt  not  that  the  feeling 
of  being  shut  up  to  the  ministry,  like  that  of  being  shut 
up  to  the  faith,  has  in  many  an  instance  brought  an 
agonizing  minister  to  the  throne  of  grace  with  such  im- 
portunity of  desire  as  to  procure  from  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus  a  signet  for  his  commission  which  he  had  never 
experienced  before.  We  may  well  believe  that  no 
sincerely  anxious  officer  will  ever  mistake  his  calling 
and  find  himself  reduced  to  the  necessity  of  renouncing 
the  ministry  for  want  of  conscious  vocation.  The  merci- 
ful "  High  Priest  of  our  profession  "  will  authenticate 
what  his  visible  court  on  earth  may  have  unadvisably 
conferred  if  the  wretched  functionary  will  persevere  to 
plead  for  such  a  grace,  feeling  that  it  is  woe  unto  him  if 
he  preach  not  the  gospel,  and  still  greater  woe  if  he 
bring  upon  the  gospel  suspicion,  discredit  and  shame  by 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    237 

an  open  relinquishment.  In  vain,  however,  may  this 
ultimate  vocation  be  expected  by  the  man  who  ventures 
lightly  and  presumptuously  to  intrude.  It  is  only  the 
mistake  of  an  honest  intention  at  the  threshold  which 
may  hope  to  have  all  that  is  wanting  overtaken  by  the 
long-suffering  grace  and  goodness  of  the  Saviour. 

III.  The  ordinary  fixedness  of  pastoral  relation  be- 
longs to  the  general  conception  of  permanence  in  the 
office  of  a  teaching  elder.  In  this  relation  the  Holy 
Ghost  has  made  him  bishop  with  oversight  of  a  par- 
ticular flock.  This  divine  Director  was  particular  from 
the  beginning  to  govern  the  movement  of  his  ministers 
in  regard  to  regions  and  localities  of  their  work.  Even 
the  general  oversight  which  was  committed  to  the 
apostles  had  to  follow  the  constraint  of  their  will  and 
wisdom  by  the  Spirit  to  go  or  to  refrain  from  going  to 
one  place  and  not  to  another  by  the  sovereignty  of  his 
direction.  Acts  xvi.  7.  No  itinerancy,  therefore,  should 
be  made  machinal  by  a  polity  of  the  Church,  but  every 
pastor  should  be  left  to  the  fellowship  of  the  Spirit  to 
guide  his  settlement  or  to  transfer  his  ministry  from  one 
flock  to  another ;  and  if  the  Church  as  a  body  should 
have  no  machinery  to  keep  him  moving,  still  less  should 
he  make  a  machine  of  his  own  will  under  the  impact  of 
indolence,  taste  or  expediency  without  spiritual  power  on 
the  conscience  to  govern  his  continuance  or  his  change. 
Prayerless  decision  is  bad  omen. 

(1)  The  very  name  of  "pastor"  intimates  a  steady 
continuance  with  one  flock,  attention  to  the  lambs  in 
successive  generations  as  they  grow  up  in  his  nurture, 
and  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  temper,  conditions 
and  wants  of  the  grown,  acquired  only  in  the  course  of 
a  durable  relation. 


238  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

(2)  The  fair  economy  of  ministerial  support,  accord- 
ing to  the  Scriptures,  must  import  a  fixed  relation  between 
pastor  and  people.  It  is  a  regulated  exchange,  and  not  a 
precarious  barter,  that  temporal  benefits  be  returned  for 
spiritual  privilege  and  the  nutriment  of  souls.  The 
word  of  God  has  enjoined  it  with  metaphors  or  analogies 
taken  from  the  established  and  permanent  reciprocities 
of  nature  itself  and  the  equities  of  common  sense  (1 
Cor.  ix.) :  "  Who  .goeth  a  warfare,  at  any  time,  on  his 
own  charges?  Who  planteth  a  vineyard  and  eateth 
not  the  fruit  thereof,  or  who  feedeth  a  flock  and  eateth 
not  of  the  milk  of  the  flock  ?  If  we  have  sown  unto 
you  spiritual  things,  is  it  a  great  thing,  if  we  should 
reap  your  carnal  things?"  "Even  so  hath  the  Lord 
ordained,  that  they  who  preach  the  gospel  should  live 
of  the  gospel."  Similitude  of  this  kind  implies  the 
dealing  of  a  settled  life  and  must  be  colorless  and  in- 
appropriate  to  the  travelling  and  transitory  connections 
of  clerical  life,  whether  this  be  an  interchanging  itiner- 
ancy, stated  supply  or  hiring  by  the  month  or  by  the 
single  year.  Adequate  returns  to  the  ministry  are  all 
indefinite,  and  we  are  to  wait  for  them  with  indefinite 
patience. 

(3)  Charges  to  the  eldership  in  regard  to  the  watch- 
fulness of  their  station  bear  the  presumption  of  indefinite 
future  in  a  tenure  of  local  office.  (Acts  xx.  28,  29) : 
"  Take  heed  therefore  to  yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock 
over  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers,  to 
feed  the  Church  of  God,  which  he  hath  purchased  with 
his  own  blood.  For  I  know  that  after  my  departure 
shall  grievous  wolves  enter  in  among  you,  not  sparing 
the  flock."  If  these  elders  of  Ephesus  were  not  per- 
manently settled  there,  but  transient  as  the  apostle  him- 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    239 

self,  why  were  they  warned  of  future  clangers  to  that 
flock,  out  of  the  hearing  of  the  flock  themselves,  at 
Miletus,  w^here  they  were  sent  for  tx>  meet  him  ?  What- 
ever those  elders  were,  whether  teaching,  and  related  so 
to  the  Church  at  large,  or  ruling  elders,  and  therefore 
local,  they  would  have  been  warned  in  the  presence  of 
the  people  of  dangers  to  come  on  that  people  if  these 
ministers  had  not  been  identified  with  them  in  perma- 
nent relation.  The  indirectness  of  this  argument  does 
not  diminish  its  force.  On  the  hypothesis  only  of  a 
fixed  relation  of  those  elders  are  all  the  circumstance 
and  parlance  of  that  interview  natural.  The  emphasis 
with  which  he  speaks  of  their  particular  oversight  being 
made  by  the  Holy  Ghost  imports  too  much  reverence 
for  that  mighty  Spirit  to  consist  with  the  assumption 
that  he  is  ever  waiting  to  dissolve  one  relation  and  con- 
stitute another,  as  often  as  the  love  of  novelty  or  change 
or  the  exhaustion  of  one's  horailetic  store  may  impel  a 
man  to  shift  his  labors  to  another  field. 

Other  charges  in  the  apostolic  Epistles  warrant  the 
same  conclusion.  When  Paul  salutes  "  the  saints  which 
are  at  Philippi,  with  the  bishops  and  deacons,"  we  rea- 
sonably infer  that  these  officers  are  abiding  there  as  per- 
manently as  the  people  themselves.  When  he  writes  to 
Titus,  "For  this  cause  left  I  thee  in  Crete,  that  thou 
shouldest  set  in  order  the  things  which  are  wanting,  and 
ordain  elders  in  every  city,  as  I  have  appointed  thee," 
we  can  hardly  imagine  that  this  evangelist  was  instructed 
to  make  travelling  preachers  of  these  local  appointees,  to 
be  on  the  move  by  force  of  ordination  instead  of  remain- 
ing identified  with  the  settled  inhabitants  to  supply  that 
lack  of  service  which  itiuei-atiug  apostles  and  evangelists 
had  to  leave  behind. 


240  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

(4)  The  advantages  of  itinerancy  to  the  Church  are 
overbalanced  by  the  attending  evils.  The  family  relation 
of  the  preacher  will  be  damaged  by  constant  removals. 
The  first  care  of  pastoral  fidelity  is  a  man's  own  house- 
hold. His  children  should  have  the  endearment  of  early 
associations,  the  moulding  affections  and  friendships  of  a 
settled  home,  and  should  be  saved  from  the  rupture  of 
tendrils  which  seek  to  entwine  what  is  near  them  and 
what  cannot  frequently  be  broken  without  making  havoc 
in  the  sensibilities  of  our  nature.  The  benignant  Master 
we  serve  can  hardly  be  supposed  to  warrant  the  model 
of  a  well-ordered  family  which  the  pastor  is  concerned 
to  exhibit  thus  to  be  marred  of  necessity  by  either  a 
system  of  change  or  an  individual  inclination  to  shift 
the  pastoral  tie.  Itinerancy  belongs  rather  to  celibacy 
of  the  clergy ;  and  if  not,  the  tendency  is  to  separate 
them  as  an  order  too  much  distinct  from  the  people, 
as  the  sodalities  of  the  Romish  Church,  having  peculiar 
interests  and  supported  out  of  a  common  treasury,  with- 
out that  immediate  communication  of  him  that  is  taught 
to  him  that  teacheth  in  all  good  things  which  binds 
pastor  and  people  together  in  sympathetic  unity.  Other 
evils  might  be  intimated  with  appeal  to  facts  observed, 
such  as  invidious  comparison  of  one  minister  with  an- 
other when  they  come  in  quick  succession,  appointed 
rather  than  chosen ;  itching  ears,  captious  criticism,  super- 
ficial feelings  or  fastidious  faultfinding,  which  cannot  fail 
to  result  in  alienation,  indifference,  or  perhaps  contempt 
for  the  whole  class  of  God's  ambassadors. 

(5)  The  fixedness  of  pastoral  relation  is  matter  of 
fact  in  the  transmission  of  authentic  history.  At  an 
early  period  in  the  Middle  Ages  we  read  of  two  kinds 
of  churches,  or  places  of  meeting  for  public  worship. 


PERMANENT  OFFICERS  OF  THE  CHURCH.    241 

They  were  called  Utuli  and  martyria.  The  latter  Dame 
was  given  to  places  occupied  once  a  year  in  honor  of 
some  martyred  saint,  but  the  former  were  places  of 
stated  and  constant  worship,  and  were  called  tituli 
beciiuse  of  the  names  they  fastened  on  the  officiating 
ministers  respectively.  Thus  we  have  "  Cyprian  of 
Carthage,"  "Ambrose  of  Milan "  and  "Augustine  of 
Hippo,"  and  occasionally  the  proper  name  of  the  man 
would  be  transmuted  wholly  from  the  patronymic  to  the 
local.  This  fact  plainly  indicates  that  itinerancy  could 
not  have  been  the  normal  condition  of  presbyters  or 
bishops  in  supplying  ordinances  of  the  gospel  to  the 
churches,  or  we  would  have  long  names  to  read  in 
Church  history  and  the  pages  thereof  would  hardly 
suffice  for  the  record  of  titles. 

This  whole  argument  for  indefinite  duration  of  the 
pastoral  tie  at  one  and  the  same  conventicle,  where  the 
Holy  Ghost  makes  the  elder  a  bishop  in  presence  of  the 
particular  people  he  is  called  to  serve  and  oversee,  might 
be  much  extended,  but  not  without  trenching  on  the 
lessons  of  pastoral  theology,  the  problems  of  casuistry 
and  the  province  of  polemical  debate.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  dogma  as  a  consistency  or  a  part  of  symmetrical  gov- 
ernment to  be  inserted  here  only  as  a  logical  point  in 
rounding  off  the  notion  of  permanency  in  the  sacred 
office.  The  rule  is  almost  overlaid  with  exceptions. 
There  must  be  frequent  occasions  in  the  ])rovidence 
of  God  for  a  change  of  pastoral  settlement ;  and  if  we 
had  in  Scripture  a  demonstration  of  direct  words  against 
it,  there  might  be  a  sad  entanglement  of  conscience  in 
many  a  great  and  good  minister  of  Christ,  and  a  con- 
strained submission  to  ills  which  might  destroy  his  use- 
fulness and  his  happiness  at  life-work.     But  ordered,  as 

18 


242  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

it  is,  in  hints  and  in  warranted  inferences  merely,  we  are 
authorized  to  make  fixedness  the  rule  and  removal  the 
exception,  and  one  which  slight  indications  of  the  divine 
will  as  to  any  change  proposed  must  lead  the  conscien- 
tious minister  to  pause  with  anxious  inquiry  and  with 
much  prayer,  yielding  to  it  only  when  it  is  pressed  upon 
him  by  the  indubitable  hand  of  God. 


CHAPTER  X. 

PARITY  OF  MINISTERS. 

PERMANENCY  of  any  office  or  institute  leads  us, 
by  the  logic  of  events,  to  a  contemplation  of  equal- 
ity in  the  ultimate  distribution  of  power  among  men, 
especially  as  the  spread  of  its  mission  becomes  universal. 
Time  in  its  duration  must  bring  down  toward  a  level 
disparity  of  height  among  all  the  works  of  nature, 
providence  and  grace.  In  unison  with  Oriental  con- 
ceptions of  ruling  power,  the  Church  wisely  began  its 
government  in  patriarchal  absoluteness  of  authority ; 
and  then,  as  the  family  grew  to  a  people  in  religion,  a 
lower  level  of  three  orders  in  the  constitution  of  hier- 
archy began  the  distribution  of  order  and  authority 
with  some  degree  of  equity.  And  yet,  while  this  triad, 
with  the  help  of  theocracy,  was  fulfilling  its  errand, 
holy  men  of  old,  speaking  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost,  foresaw  a  lower  and  broader  level  to  be 
reached  when  universality  would  be  attained  by  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people  in  gospel  diffusion,  making  that 
gauge  of  levels  and  bottom  of  altitudes,  the  sea,  their 
metaphor  of  rank  when  the  knowledge  of  the  Lord 
shall  fill  the  earth  "as  the  waters  cover  the  sea." 

Monarchy  and  aristocracy  cannot  have  a  long  future  in 
the  Church.  When  he  was  training  a  band  of  witnesses, 
whom  he  named  apostles,  and  observed  their  emulations 

243 


244  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  rivalry  in  aspiration  for  pre-eminence,  Jesus  uttered 
the  only  distinct  institutional  mandate  that  dropped 
from  his  lips — the  parity  of  ministers  and  destined 
equality  of  service  in  his  kingdom  :  "And  there  was 
also  a  strife  among  them,  which  of  them  should  be 
accounted  the  greatest.  And  he  said  unto  them,  Tlie 
kings  of  the  Gentiles  exercise  lordship  over  them  ;  and 
they  that  exercise  authority  upon  them  are  called  bene- 
factors. But  ye  shall  not  be  so  :  but  he  that  is  greatest 
among  you  let  him  be  as  the  younger ;  and  he  that  is 
chief,  as  he  that  doth  serve." 

So  far  as  organization  was  done  by  the  apostles,  they 
originated  no  system  of  polity  at  all,  but  evidently 
copied,  as  we  have  seen,  the  model  of  the  synagogue, 
adapting  its  principal  feature — two  or  three,  or  more, 
coequal  elders — to  Christian  life  and  worship.  It  is 
remarkable  that  directions  in  the  selection  of  these  pres- 
byters and  their  qualifications  and  duties  are  pastoral 
more  than  ecclesiastical.  There  is  nowhere  an  emphasis 
on  office  itself,  even  when  it  is  called  "  a  good  work."  1 
Tim.  iii.  1.  The  notability  is  upon  the  qualifications  and 
character  of  an  aspirant  who  "desires  it" — "blame- 
less," "  vigilant,"  "  sober,"  "  of  good  behavior,"  etc. 
There  is  nowhere  a  graduated  scale  of  office  in  the 
Church,  higher  and  lower,  mentioned  in  revelation. 
We  read  of  division,  and  even  of  subdivision,  of  work 
to  be  done  officially,  and  of  "doable  honor"  awarded  to 
both  divisions,  and  especially  to  one,  and  this  the  more 
laborious.  1  Tim.  v.  17.  But  even  the  subdivision 
made  under  a  pressure  of  responsibility  is  a  distribu- 
tion of  work  on  the  same  level  of  rank. 

Contrasted  with  all  this  unsealed  delineation  of  office 
in  Scripture  is  that  of  diocesan  bishop  in  modern  prelacy 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  245 

— a  bishop  of  bishops,  hierarch  iu  long  gradation,  a  man 
of  three  ordinations  for  himself,  a  lone  ordainer  of 
others,  an  apostle  by  tradition  and  a  high  priest  of 
sacramental  religion.  That  such  an  officer  cannot  be 
identified  at  all  with  the  bishop  of  the  Bible,  Dr.  Light- 
foot,  bishop  of  Durham,  England,  frankly  concedes,  and 
yet  in  this  country  we  still  need  a  demonstration  of  this 
from  Scripture. 

The  first  passage  to  be  cited  is  Acts  xx.  28  :  "  Take 
heed  therefore  unto  yourselves,  and  to  all  the  flock,  over 
the  which   the  Holy  Ghost  hath  made  you  overseers 
(bishops)  to  feed  the  church  of    God,  winch  he    hath 
purchased  with  his  own  blood."     This  exhortation  is 
given  to  a  number  of  elders  whom  the  apostle  had  sent 
for  to  Ephesus  to  meet  him  at  Miletus.     It  needs  no 
comment  to   manifest  the  identity  of  elder  and  bishop 
where  the  term  "overseers"  (iTtcaxoTtov;)— bishops— is  so 
expressly  given  to  elders,  with  no  shade  of  difference  iu 
the  signification  but  that  of  special  duty  or  oversight 
devolving  on  elders  when  they  are  actually  put  in  charge 
of  a  particular  flock.     The  bishop  is  not  called  even 
chief,  or  primus  inter-  pares,  by  this  convertible  name. 
The  next  passage  (Phil.  i.  1)  does  not  mention  the 
word  "elders,"  but  "bishops  and  deacons"  only,  and 
the  plural  number  of  the  former— excluding,  of  course, 
the  notion  of  one  bishop  presiding  over  others — indi- 
cates only  a  number  of  elders  who  were  invested  with 
the  trust  of  an  oversight  either  in  a  collegiate  pastorate 
or  in  different  particular  churches:  "Paul   and   Tim- 
otheus,  the  servants  of  Jesus  Christ,  to  all  the  saints  in 
Christ  Jesus  which  are  at  Philippi,  with  the  bishops  and 
deacons."     The  salutation  here  is  peculiar  in  that  it  is 
addressed  to  officers  along  with  the  sainted  people  who 


246  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

are  mentioned  first.  All  other  greetings  of  the  kind  in 
other  Epistles  are  addressed  to  the  people  only,  as  con- 
stituting the  churches,  and  the  apostle  Paul  was  so  in- 
tent on  this  subject  of  writing  as — occasionally,  at  least 
— to  insist  on  his  own  words  being  read  to  all,  either 
with  or  without  a  verbal  comment  by  officers :  "  I 
charge  you  by  the  Lord  that  this  epistle  be  read  unto 
all  the  holy  brethren."  1  Thess.  v.  27.  The  reason  for 
a  special  mention -here  of  bishops  and  deacons  would 
seem  to  be  simply  the  tenor  of  gratitude  in  that  letter 
to  Philippi  for  the  generous  relief  of  his  necessities,  in 
which  the  bishops  and  deacons  together  were  doubtless 
active  and  influential  agents.  Obviously,  the  quotation 
means  that  the  body  of  believers  were  first  in  considera- 
tion; the  elders  next,  in  their  consistory,  making  a  plural 
number  and  called  "  bishops,"  in  parochial  oversight  as 
their  burden  of  duty ;  and  the  deacons  last,  in  the 
special  work  of  collecting  and  disbursing  the  benefac- 
tions of  all.  And  without  any  such  analysis  the  com- 
prehensive word  must  mean  that  elders  are  called 
"bishops"  in  the  detail  of  pastoral  duty. 

The  third  passage  which  demonstrates  the  identity 
of  elder  and  bishop  is  Tit,  i.  5  :  "  For  this  cause  left  I 
thee  in  Crete,  that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the  things 
that  are  wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city  as  I 
had  appointed  thee.  If  any  be  blameless,  the  husband 
of  one  wife,  having  faithful  children,  not  accused  of  riot 
or  unruly.  For  a  bishop  must  be  blameless,  as  the 
steward  of  God ;  not  self-willed,  not  soon  angry,  not 
given  to  wine,"  etc.  The  further  enumeration  in  this 
reason  for  carefulness  at  the  choice  of  men  for  the  elder- 
ship, being  still  more  exactly  predicates  of  the  right 
men  for  the  pastorate  of  a  particular  church,  adds  to  the 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  247 

force  of  this  text  in  proving  what  is  manifest  on  its  face 
to  any  honest  reader — that  elder  and  bishop  are  identi- 
cal in  rank ;  and  the  same  qualifications  become  more 
pointed  and  minute  when  the  elder  takes  charge  of  a 
particular  flock  and  is  called  "  bishop  "  on  this  account. 
The  same  office,  on  one  side,  is  designated  by  name  for 
the  mature  dignity  of  age,  and  on  the  other  side  by 
name  for  the  special  activity  of  functions  in  supervising 
and  serving  the  interests  of  one  congregation. 

The  fourth  proof-text  comes  from  the  inspiration  of 
Peter,  "an  apostle  of  Jesus  Christ"  (1  Pet.  v.  12):  "The 
elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  am  also  an 
elder,  and  a  witness  of  the  sufferings  of  Christ,  and  also 
a  partaker  of  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed ;  feed  the 
flock  of  God,  which  is  among  you,  taking  the  oversight 
thereof,"  etc.  This  oversight  is  expressed  by  the  par- 
ticiple i7te<Txo7coi)VT£c  ("being  bishops  thereof").  Here 
the  apostle  calls  himself  a  fellow-elder,  as  the  apostle 
John  does,  also,  in  the  superscription  of  his  Second  and 
Third  Epistles,  indicating  that  eldership  is  the  generical 
office  of  the  Christian  ministry  for  all  ages,  and  that  all 
above  it  in  rank  is  ephemeral,  and  all  below  it,  as  bishop 
and  deacon,  is  but  titular  service,  which  the  levels  of 
Presbyterial  benches,  councils  or  assemblies,  legitimately 
direct  and  govern. 

It  may  seem  to  intelligent  readers  a  superfluity  thus 
to  expand  the  Bible  demonstration  that  elders  and  bishops 
were  the  same  in  rank  of  office  when  the  apostles  finished 
their  direction  of  the  Christian  Church,  inasmuch  as  it 
is  conceded  now  by  prelacy  itself  that  the  two  names 
were  first  used  convertibly  for  the  same  office.  The 
concession  is  reluctant,  however,  and  had  not  been  made 
when  the  Ordinal  of  the  English  Church  was  composed, 


248  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

else  the  scriptures  giving  qualifications  and  duties  of 
elders  would  hardly  have  been  cited  for  the  ordination 
of  diocesan  bishops  created  by  the  State.  Nor  is  the 
concession  ])oi)ularized  even  yet  and  in  this  country, 
where  Bibles  overlaid  with  cathedral  assertion  are  in 
the  hands  of  tlie  people.  The  title  "  bisliop  "  can  hardly 
be  retained  at  all  in  designating  parochial  pastors,  which 
is  confessedly  the  only  scriptural  use  of  the  term.  It 
would  be  an  interesting  arbitration  of  common  sense  to 
have  the  people  generally  invited  to  decide  on  the  one 
side  between  Dr.  Hammond  and  Bishop  Pearson,  who 
held  that  all  the  bishops  of  the  New  Testament  must 
have  been  prelates  of  rank  superior  to  elders,  and  on  the 
other  side  with  Dr.  Dodwell,  Dr.  Whitby  and  Bishop 
Hoadly,  and  now  with  Dr.  Lightfoot,  holding  with  us 
that  they  were  all  presbyters  (or  elders)  only,  and  that 
no  prelates  existed  until  the  apostles,  whose  successors 
they  claim  to  be,  passed  away  without  even  a  color  of 
testamentary  heritage. 

This  contest  continues,  and  the  people  do  not  seem  to 
know  it  because  of  the  continued  clamor  and  boast  about 
apostolic  succession,  which,  without  one  word  of  warrant 
in  the  canon  of  Scripture,  and  without  one  trace  of  au- 
thentic history  for  two  hundred  years  after  Christ,  per- 
sists to  assert  itself  because  it  is  Nicene  and  of  imperial 
birth  and  breeding ;  and  this  notwithstanding  the  fact,  as 
we  have  seen,  that  John  the  beloved  disciple  and  Peter  the 
rock-disciple  both  called  themselves  elders,  and  the  latter 
"fellow-elder."  So,  if  apostles  identified  themselves  with 
elders  then,  and  if  elders  identify  themselves  with  apostles 
now,  merging  bishop  in  apostle,  what  becomes  of  "  three 
orders  "  in  the  teaching  ministry,  of  which  we  hear  so 
much  ?     Besides,  if  we   adopt   the  post-apostolic  hier- 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  249 

archy  with  Jerome  under  protest,  and  excuse  it  for  the 
reason  he  did — because  visible  unity  required  the  apos- 
tle-bishop for  the  sake  of  expediency  in  ruling  against 
schism — we  tarnish  with  misnomer  the  office  of  apostle, 
who  was  not  a  ruler,  but  a  witness  for  Christ,  in  laying 
the  foundations  of  the  gospel  and  in  promulging  the 
testimony  everywhere  to  Jews  and  Gentiles.  Apostles 
were  missionaries  more  than  rulers,  teachers  more  than 
masters.  They  inlierited  and  bequeathed  a  polity  which 
they  approved,  but  never  contrived.  Elders  are  the 
only  constituted  magistracy  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  their  charter  is  "  of  old  time,"  as  acknowledged  by 
Christ  and  his  apostles. 

Parity  of  rank  in  the  ministry  may  be  vindicated  in 
every  particular  of  superiority  alleged  in  hierarchical 
systems  of  church  government.  A  brief  survey  of  dis- 
parities here  will  suffice.  The  five  particulars  in  which 
elders  are  made  inferior  to  bishops  are  confirmation  as  a 
rite,  in  which  the  baptized  members  are  admitted  to  full 
communion,  the  exercise  of  discipline,  ordination  to  office, 
the  deacon  as  a  preacher  and  the  extent  of  jurisdiction. 

I.  It  is  claimed  in  prelacy  that  the  diocesan  bishop 
only  has  the  authority  of  admitting  to  full  privileges  of 
the  Church  those  who  have  been  baptized  in  infancy  or 
age,  and  the  ceremony  with  which  this  is  done  has 
become  in  his  hands  the  rite  of  confirmation.  A 
definition  of  this  rite  is  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  and 
the  description  of  it  varies  among  both  Romanists  and 
Protestant  Episcopalians.  Probably  the  following,  in 
Bishop  Hobart's  Companion  for  the  Altar,  is  the  most 
generally  accepted :  "  It  is  a  ratification,  on  the  part  of 
those  who  receive  it,  of  their  baptismal  engagements, 
and  a  confirmation  by  almighty  God  of  all  the  privileges 


250  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  their  baptism.  The  bishops  are  to  confirm  all  that 
have  repented  and  are  made  disciples  in  the  washing  of 
regeneration  by  laying  their  hands  upon  them  and  in- 
voking the  aid  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  that  they  may  con- 
tinue Christ's  faithful  soldiers  and  servants  to  their  lives' 
end,  as  St.  Peter  and  St.  John  did  with  the  disciples  of 
Samaria." 

(1)  Examine  the  cited  proof-texts,  beginning  with  the 
reference  to  Peter,  and  John  at  Samaria,  mentioned  in 
the  last  clause  of  the  description  (Acts  viii.  14-17) : 
"  Now,  when  the  apostles  which  were  at  Jerusalem 
heard  that  Samaria  had  received  the  word  of  God, 
they  sent  unto  them  Peter  and  John :  who,  when  they 
were  come  down,  prayed  for  them  that  they  might  re- 
ceive the  Holy  Ghost,  for  as  yet  he  was  fallen  upon  none 
of  them :  only  they  were  baptized  in  the  name  of  the 
Lord  Jesus."  This  passage,  obviously,  has  not  the 
slightest  bearing  upon  any  ritualistic  performance  for 
the  generations  following.  It  relates  only  to  the  char- 
isms  of  Pentecost,  the  transactions  of  a  miraculous  time 
by  the  hands  of  an  extraordinary  apostleship;  and  even 
their  hands  were  not  more  potential  than  might  have 
been  those  of  Philip  the  deacon,  by  whom  the  Samari- 
tans had  been  evangelized ;  for  the  Holy  Ghost  descended, 
in  answer  to  their  prayers,  with  those  supernatural  effects 
which  were  so  palpable  at  Jerusalem  in  answer  to  prayer, 
and  visibly  symbolized  by  "  cloven  tongues,  like  as  of 
fire,  sitting  upon  each  of  them."  Something  like  this, 
and  palpable  to  the  senses,  must  have  been  the  manifes- 
tation, or  Simon  the  sorcerer  would  not  have  offered 
money  to  buy  the  power  the  apostles  had  in  that  sort 
of  confirmation. 

The  next  proof  is  found  in  Acts  xix.  1-7,  which  we 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  261 

have  only  to  read  and  dismiss  for  the  same  reason — its 
absolute  irrelevancy  :  "And  when  Paul  had  laid  his 
hands  upon  them,  the  Holy  Ghost  came  on  them  ;  and 
they  spake  with  tongues  and  prophesied."  If  our 
modern  prelates  were  veritable  apostles  continued,  and 
the  action  of  laying  on  their  hands  were  attended  with 
marvellous  phenomena  of  gifts  as  the  effect  of  confirma- 
tion, we  could  not  receive  it  as  a  rite  perpetual  on  the 
explanation  of  Bishop  Hobart — that  inward  grace  was 
conferred  in  those  acts  of  apostolic  hands  of  which  the 
outward  marvels  were  indication  at  that  time.  This 
fancy  is  mere  assertion,  and  is  inconsistent  with  facts 
of  Scripture  and  experience.  The  gift  of  tongues  never 
was,  and  never  will  be,  the  sure  exponent  of  confirmed 
grace  in  the  heart :  "  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that  day. 
Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in  thy  name ;  and 
in  thy  name  have  cast  out  devils ;  and  in  thy  name  done 
many  wonderful  works  ?  And  then  will  I  profess  unto 
them,  E  never  knew  you  :  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work 
iniquity." 

(2)  It  is  singular  and  significant  that  portions  of 
Scripture  which  give  us  the  words  "confirm,"  "con- 
firmed" and  "confirming"  in  the  Authorized  Version 
and  the  recent  Revision  also,  and  which  in  their  places 
mean  the  same  thing  that  is  said  to  be  imported  in  the 
meaning  of  confirmation  as  a  rite,  are  not  cited  at  all  for 
the  warrant  of  its  practice.  Acts  xiv.  22 ;  xv.  32,  41 ; 
1  Cor.  i.  8.  Is  it  because  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  exhortations  of  his  word  on  the  lips  of  missionary- 
men,  without  the  laying  on  of  hands  or  any  ritualistic 
form,  is  the  true  method  of  confirmation  for  souls  under 
the  gospel  ?  Or  is  it  the  affectation  of  apostolic  dignity 
and  a  superior  grade,  to  be  reckoned  the  same  as  that  of 


252  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

John,  Peter  and  Paul,  which  led  the  diocesans  to  force 
the  Scriptures  aud  wrest  the  temporal  sense  without 
necessity,  in  order  to  crystallize  into  a  rite  for  them- 
selves alone  to  handle  the  precious  words  of  Holy  Writ 
which  were  given  to  "drop  as  the  rain  and  distill  as  the 
dew  "  in  confirming  souls  "  unto  the  end  "?  It  is  also 
curious  that  another  passage  which  led  John  Calvin  to 
suggest  the  apostolic  antiquity  of  confirmation  as  a  rite, 
in  his  commentary  on  the  text,  but  not  in  his  Institutes 
(where  it  is  rejected),  was  not  included  with  proof-texts 
by  the  Companion  for  the  Altar.  Was  this  also  because 
it  does  not  signify  three  orders  in  the  ministry  ? 

(3)  Hebrews  vi.  1,  2  is  the  text  to  which  we  refer, 
and  the  only  one  in  the  Bible  that  has  the  least  plausi- 
bility in  favor  of  confirmation  as  a  primitive  rite : 
"  Therefore,  leaving  the  principles  of  the  doctrine 
o^  Christ,  let  us  go  on  unto  perfection,  not  laying 
again  the  foundation  of  repentance  from  dead  works, 
and  of  faith  toward  God,  of  the  doctrine  of  baptisms, 
and  of  laying  on  of  hands,  aud  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  and  of  eternal  judgment."  This  "  laying 
on  of  hands,"  mentioned  here  as  an  elementary  feature 
of  the  Christian  system,  has  a  variety  of  senses  in  both 
the  Old  and  the  New  Testament,  and  any  of  them  more 
familiar  than  the  ceremony  of  any  rite.  It  was  a  ges- 
ture used  in  patriarchal  blessing,  in  prayer  put  up  for 
one  when  sacrifice  was  offered  with  confession  of  sin,  in 
solemn  consecration  to  office,  in  benediction,  as  our  Sav- 
iour laid  his  hands  on  little  children  to  bless  them  and 
on  the  sick  to  heal  them,  and  when,  in  imitation  of  our 
Lord,  the  apostles  laid  their  hands  on  the  sick  to  heal 
them,  and  on  the  deacons  to  ordain  them,  and  on  con- 
verts when  God  was  pleased  to  answer  prayers  by  shed- 


PARITY  OF  iMINISTERS.  253 

ding  down  on  these  the  supernatural  gifts.  Now,  to 
say  that  this  last  occasion  of  the  gesture,  to  be  imitated 
by  all  succeeding  bishops  of  higher  degree  made  by 
man,  is  the  allusion  of  the  Bible  in  this  place,  must 
arrantly  beg  the  question  even  if  we  should  accept  this 
rite  itself  to  be  continued  in  the  churches,  and  admit 
that  the  gifts  of  Pentecost  were,  in  a  figure,  just  the 
same  as  the  Christian  graces  for  all  time,  which  are 
confirmed  only  by  the  word  and  Spirit  of  God.  How 
much  more  sensible  the  opinion  of  Cartwright,  that 
this  phrase  denotes  by  metonymy  the  mode  of  ordination 
by  the  laying  on  of  hands  for  the  institution  itself  of 
a  standing  ministry  !  This,  indeed,  as  a  fundamental 
tenet  infinitely  more  than  as  a  ceremony,  is  categorically 
fitted  here  in  the  enumeration  of  repentance,  faith,  bap- 
tism, the  resurrection  and  eternal  judgment. 

(4)  The  disparagement  of  baptism — or,  as  Bishop 
Hobart  calls  it,  "  washing  of  regeneration  " — theoreti- 
cally and  practically  done  by  the  rite  of  confirmation, 
is  inconsistent  with  the  authority  of  Christ,  who  com- 
manded us  to  bajitize  all  that  are  discipled  by  the 
gospel,  without  the  slightest  intimation  of  any  supple- 
mentary action  needed  after  an  interval  of  years  in 
order  to  continue  and  confirm  its  benefits  by  counter- 
signing the  sanction  and  seal  we  have  in  the  initiatory 
ordinance  itself.  Rebaptisni  is  not  allowed  either  by 
popery  or  by  prelacy,  and  even  lay  baptism  is  protected 
against  any  repetition  in  both  systems,  because  confirma- 
tion is  reserved  as  a  rite  by  which  defective  baptism  is 
cured  and  the  neglect  of  it  is  overtaken  and  the  sanc- 
tification  of  it  realized  and  its  validity  reached  by  the 
retroactive  efficacy  of  this  handling  by  a  prelate.  A 
reserve  like  this  could  not  have  been  the  mind  of  Christ 


254  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

or  of  his  apostles  when  the  completeness  of  baptism  as 
a  token  of  admission  to  the  kingdom  was  pronounced 
often  and  emphatically.  Surely,  Peter  and  John  at 
Samaria  and  Paul  at  Ephesus,  in  laying  their  hands 
instantly  on  the  converts,  when  the  fact  of  a  baptism 
was  assured,  that  they  might  receive  the  Holy  Ghost, 
held  no  interval  of  preparation  for  another  ceremony  in 
order  to  be  reassured  that  the  efficacy  of  baptism  con- 
tinued and  might  be  reserved,  corrected  or  confirmed, 
by  the  laying  on  of  hands. 

(5)  The  disparagement  of  baptism  itself  is  aggravated 
by  the  humiliation  of  the  baptizer,  also,  in  reserving  a 
subsequent  confirmation  by  the  hands  of  a  superior 
order.  That  great  ecclesiastic  of  the  fourth  century, 
Jerome,  weak  in  his  conformity  as  he  was  firm  in  his 
judgment,  murmured  against  this  usage  of  the  Latin 
Church,  saying  that  committing  the  benediction  of  such 
a  rite  to  the  diocesan  bishops  was  "  rather  in  honor  of 
the  priesthood  than  warranted  by  any  law."  With  him 
Augustine  agreed,  both  of  them  regarding  the  nature 
of  this  rite  as  merely  benediction  in  form  and  import, 
as  we  pronounce  it  at  the  close  of  public  worship  with 
uplifted  hands  over  the  congregation.  The  whole  North 
African  Church  dissented  from  Rome  and  agreed  with 
the  Greek  churches  in  assigning  to  the  presbyter,  as  a 
parochial  bishop,  the  ceremony  of  confirmation.  In- 
deed, the  incongruity  of  transferring  it  to  diocesan 
bishops  was  one  of  the  charges  made  by  Photius  of 
Constantinople  against  Nicolaus  of  Rome  in  the  ninth 
century,  and  remained  one  of  the  causes  for  a  final  dis- 
ruption between  the  Eastern  and  Western  branches  of 
the  old  Catholic  Church.  The  Greeks  were  right,  in  all 
reason,  if  such  a  rite  should  exist  at  all.     It  is  a  cruel 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  255 

humiliation  to  the  pastor  that  an  overseer  must  come 
with  periodical  visitation  and  superior  title  and  do  for 
the  young  people  and  catechumens  of  his  charge  what 
their  own  shepherd  must  not  do,  though  competent  and 
required  to  confirm  in  every  scriptural  way  those  whom 
he  has  baptized  and  taught  the  truth  as  it  is  in  Christ. 

(6)  Although  it  is  proper  that  in  every  particular 
church  there  should  be  an  emphasis  put  upon  the  occa- 
sion of  admitting  baptized  members  to  full  privileges  in 
communion,  it  is  enough  to  charge  them  in  the  public 
assembly  with  the  duties  and  responsibilities  of  a  full 
profession  by  exhortation,  encouragement  and  supplica- 
tion to  God  for  his  blessing.  More  than  this,  and  other 
than  this,  to  inform  them  virtually  that  they  were  re- 
generated in  baptism,  and  that  the  efficacy  of  that  ordi- 
nance, where  it  has  been  lost,  is  now  restored,  where  it 
has  been  defective  is  now  completed,  and  where  it  has 
continued  is  now  increased  and  confirmed  to  the  end, 
must  always  tend  more  or  less  to  lull  the  confirmed  in 
carnal  security,  to  make  benediction  a  sacrament,  and  the 
sacrament  salvation,  and  salvation  a  formalism  of  per- 
functory continuance.  Doubtless,  truly  spiritual  pro- 
fessors will  escape  such  tendency,  but  not  without  some 
detriment,  which  always  attends  unauthorized  solem- 
nities. 

Parity  in  Discipline. 
II.  We  claim  for  every  ordained  minister  an  equal 
power  of  discipline  over  members — that  is,  the  exercise 
of  authority  in  the  censure  of  offences  against  the  order 
and  purity  of  the  Church  by  enforcing  the  laws  given 
for  this  purpose.  That  all  ministers  of  the  word  are 
alike  empowered  in  this  respect  may  be  argued — 


256  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

(1)  From  the  teuor  of  their  commission,  beginning 
with  its  preface :  "  All  power  is  given  unto  me  in 
heaven  and  in  earth,  go  ye  therefore,"  etc.  It  is  obvi- 
ous that  no  intervening  depositories  of  power  can  come, 
without  usurpation,  betw^een  the  supreme  fountain  and 
the  ministers  of  word  and  sacraments  in  any  department 
of  ecclesiastical  administration.  Especially  is  it  unau- 
thorized and  presumptuous  when  such  intervention 
subordinates  the  elder  and  actually  supersedes  him  in 
disciplinary  measures  with  his  own  flock.  These  min- 
isters of  the  word  and  sacraments  are  called  "stewards" 
in  1  Cor,  iv.  1.  Stewards  had  the  superintendence  of 
households,  bestowed  immediately  by  the  master,  and  in 
great  houses  wore  a  key  upon  the  shoulder  for  a  badge 
of  office.  Hence  the  use  of  this  emblem  by  our  Lord 
in  giving  the  keys  to  his  representative  apostles,  the 
original  witnesses,  who  were  themselves  ministers  of  the 
word  pre-eminently,  and  governed  the  Christian  Church 
as  preachers  incomparably  more  than  as  rulers.  Open- 
ing and  shutting  by  the  use  of  the  keys  go  together. 
The  same  officers,  unquestionably,  are  authorized  to 
admit  and  to  exclude.  The  door  of  admittance  they 
open  is  baptism,  which  ministers  of  the  word  are  com- 
manded to  administer,  and  the  door  of  privilege  to 
which  members  enter  by  baptism  in  form  is  to  be  shut 
in  the  deprivation  of  privilege  by  the  same  authority 
that  had  opened  the  access. 

(2)  A  proof  of  this  fair  equation  is  to  be  derived, 
also,  from  the  very  nature  of  all  warranted  discipline 
by  the  church.  Its  elementary  definition  is  an  author- 
ized application  of  divine  words  to  ascertained  offences. 
No  ministry  of  man  has  more  than  declarative  punish- 
ment in  its  force  at  any  degree  of  culpability  in  the 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  257 

offender.  It  must  be  readily  conceded  that  preaching 
itself  contains  "warning,  reproof  and  rebuke,  in  its 
ordinary  ministration  of  the  pastorate  especially ;  and 
if  the  lower  forms  of  infliction  by  the  word  are  thus 
confessedly  in  the  hands  of  an  eldership,  where  shall 
the  line  be  drawn  at  which  the  presbyter,  who  is  a 
parochial  bishop,  shall  desist,  and  the  diocesan  bishop 
assume  exclusively  the  process  of  censure  ?  This  arbi- 
trary distinction  comes,  unquestionably,  from  an  im- 
perial origin  which  made  the  secular  diocese  religious 
and  armed  the  diocesan  with  a  sword  more  than  moral 
in  its  edge  and  other  than  spiritual  in  its  aim. 

(3)  The  names  and  the  attributes  given  by  the  Bible 
to  the  New-Testament  elder  import  the  utmost  dis- 
ciplinary power  competent  to  any  spiritual  officer. 
"Presbyter"  itvSelf,  in  its  official  use,  meant  from  of 
old  a  judge  and  ruler  at  the  gate.  The  same  word 
or  words  in  Hebrew  to  denote  the  rulei's  over  all  Israel 
originally  selected  at  the  bidding  of  Moses  to  aid  him 
in  the  administration  of  rule  (Dent.  i.  13  ;  Mic.  iii.  9) 
are  translated  in  the  Septuagint  by  a  term  or  terms 
which  thrice  in  one  chapter  of  Hebrews  (xiii.  7,  17,  24) 
denominate  ordinary  ministers  of  the  word.  The  same 
term  that  is  used  by  Thucydides,  Demosthenes,  Herod- 
otus and  Plato  for  designating  rulers  of  armies,  cities 
and  kingdoms  is  used  in  Rom.  xii.  8;  1  Thess.  v.  12; 
1  Tim.  v.  17  to  signify  elders  of  the  Christian  Church. 
Every  power  deputed  to  church-officers  we  find  included 
in  three  Greek  terms  (used  as  verb,  ])articiple  or  noun), 
■fjfioiiae,  npotorrjiic,  Tcoi/mci^co,  and  each  one  of  them,  un- 
doubtedly, applied  to  the  simple  presbyter  of  Scripture. 
If,  then,  we  believe  that  the  sacred  writers  were  guided 
by  infallible  wisdom  in  the  selection  of  significant  words 

17 


258  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

for  designating  the  legitimate  officers  of  the  Church,  we 
must  believe  that  gospel  ministers,  as  such,  are  clothed 
with  paramount  disciplinary  power  in  the  exercise  of 
their  appropriate  jurisdiction,  amenable  only  to  assem- 
blies of  themselves,  and  to  no  higher  personage  on 
earth. 

(4)  Facts  bear  witness  that  elders  are  chief  in  the 
exercise  of  ecclesiastical  authority,  whatever  its  form 
may  be.  They  were  associated  with  apostles  on  terms 
of  equal  commission  at  the  first  General  Assembly  con- 
stituted in  Christendom.  Acts  xv.  There  were  not  two 
houses  in  that  convocation — one  of  apostles  and  the 
other  of  elders  and  "  brethren  " — nor  was  it  a  matter 
of  routine  ecclesiasticism  or  debate  about  liturgical 
phrases  which  engaged  the  deliberation  of  "apostles 
and  elders"  together,  but  the  most  momentous  ques- 
tion of  the  age  for  a  living  missionaiy  Church — how 
far  the  trammels  of  Judaism  should  hinder  and  load 
a  free  gospel  and  the  defunct  ceremonial  of  hierarchical 
time  should  trail  on  the  glorious  liberty  of  faith  in 
Christ.  Barnabas  and  Paul,  with  "no  small  dissension 
and  disputation  "  at  Antioch  with  Judaizers,  could  not 
settle  the  question  without  reference  to  a  general  council 
of  "  apostles  and  elders "  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  when  the 
decision  was  made,  Paul  and  Barnabas  were  associated 
with  acknowledged  elders — Judas  and  Silas — in  pro- 
mulging  the  decrees  by  appointment  of  the  council. 
Now  subtract  the  transitory  element  from  the  constitu- 
ency of  that  supreme  arbitration  of  faith  and  love  and 
duty  in  the  first  age,  and  elders  remain  the  only  true 
successors  in  representative  power.  Other  facts  might 
be  cited  to  the  same  effect.  Pecuniary  trusts  in  relief 
of  suifering  communities  and  sustentation  of  the  infant 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  259 

Church  were  first  laid  at  the  feet  of  apostles  and  after- 
ward sent  to  the  elders,  their  only  visible  successors  in 
the  highest  authority  of  distribution.  Another  fact 
in  this  connection  should  be  noticed  in  the  ministry 
of  Paul,  "an  apostle"  of  special  mention  as  the  dis- 
ciplinarian at  Corinth.  Instead  of  proceeding  thither 
with  bodily  presence  to  direct  the  process  of  trial  and 
punishment  in  the  case  of  a  profligate  offender,  he  sends 
only  the  urgency  of  advice,  and  relegates  process  to  the 
constituted  authorities  of  the  church  among  the  Co- 
rinthians themselves.  These,  of  course,  were  the  elders 
whom  he  ordained,  or  advised  to  be  ordained,  "  in  every 
church." 

(5)  The  example  of  apostolic  dealing  with  the  church 
at  Corinth  in  the  conduct  of  discipline  suggests  tiie 
inexpediency,  as  well  as  the  want  of  warrant,  in  pro- 
cedures of  discipline,  to  entrust  the  practical  exercise  to 
any  one  superior  to  the  parochial  officers,  who  have  the 
immediate  oversight  of  membership  and  of  the  intima- 
cies of  social  life  in  each  particular  church.  The  tact  is 
wanting,  necessarily,  where  familiar  acquaintance  Avith 
character  is  wanting,  and  the  diocesan  bishop,  whether 
distant  or  near,  cannot  possess  what  the  parochial  bishop 
or  pastor  knows  of  origin,  growth,  environment,  etc., 
which  modify  sound  judgment  in  the  censure  of  wicked- 
ness. The  most  pious  of  prelates  must,  therefore,  often 
drop  the  reins  in  fear  of  making  mistakes,  and  must 
allow  folly  and  sin  to  be  rampant  where  the  unity  he 
represents  was  made  ostensibly  the  best  efficient  in  the 
repression  of  evil.  Never  does  the  word  of  God  repose 
the  safety  of  his  Church  in  the  unity  of  one  man,  pope 
or  prelate,  placed  over  numbers  of  men,  but  the  con- 
trary.    Solomon  said,  "  Where  no  counsel  is,  the  people 


260  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

fall ;  but  in  the  multitude  of  counsellors  there  is  safety." 
A  greater  than  Solomon  said,  in  directing  an  ultimate 
appeal,  "Tell  it  to  the  church."  Who  can  believe  that 
our  Lord  meant  by  this,  "  Tell  it  to  the  bishop,"  a  dig- 
nitary who  makes  a  judicial  circuit  in  coming,  or  comes 
only  when  sent  for,  to  take  cognizance  of  causes  outside 
of  his  personal  knowledge  and  reported  to  him  by 
rumor?  Take,  also,  the  words  of  Peter  (1  Pet.  v.  2,  3), 
"  The  elders  which  are  among  you  I  exhort,  who  am 
also  an  elder,  and  a  witness :  feed  the  flock  of  God 
which  is  among  you,  taking  the  oversight  thereof"  (act- 
ing as  bishops  thereof),  and  read  them  in  the  parlance 
of  prelacy  for  a  comment :  "  The  elders  which  are  among 
you  I  exhort,  who  am  not  an  elder,  but  a  bishop,  and 
not  a  witness  chiefly,  but  a  ruler :  feed  the  flock  of 
God  which  is  among  you,  without  taking  the  oversight 
as  bishops,  for  I  am  the  only  bishop,  and  am  soon  to 
leave  my  oversight  to  successors  like  myself,  who  will 
be  over  you  in  rank  to  exercise  the  authority  of  dis- 
cipline exclusively."  Is  not  this  contradiction  to  Peter? 
(6)  The  apostles  did  not  exercise  discipline  themselves 
except  in  words  of  preaching  and  epistolary  counsel. 
The  local  officers  in  particular  churches  were  authorized 
to  conduct  the  process  themselves.  The  example  of 
Paul  in  the  sway  of  his  authority  among  the  Corinth- 
ians has  been  cited  often  to  the  contrary,  but  this  only 
apparent  exception  is  easily  explained.  He  was  the 
father  of  that  church  (1  Cor.  iv.  15),  and  more  entitled 
than  "ten  thousand  instructors"  to  guide  them  \vith  his 
counsels.  Their  local  officers  were  divided  among  them- 
selves, and  he  would  naturally  seek  to  unite  them  by 
his  letters;  and  his  interference  in  discipline  was  not  to 
execute  it  himself,  but  to  prompt  them  to  this  unpleasant 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  261 

duty — both  to  inflict  the  censure,  and  to  remove  it  on 
evidence  of  repentance  in  the  offender :  "  Wherefore  I 
beseech  you,"  etc.  This  surely  is  not  the  language  of 
dictation,  even,  so  much  as  that  of  paternal  interest  and 
affection.  There  is  also  in  the  case  at  Corinth,  as  well 
as  in  that  at  Ephesus  (1  Tim.  i.  20),  a  trace  of  the 
supernatural,  belonging  only  to  the  apostles,  and  min- 
istry of  gifts  in  that  age  of  miraculous  beginning,  de- 
livering over  "  to  Satan  for  the  destruction  of  the  flesh," 
which,  interpreted  any  way,  is  hardly  intelligible  in  the 
ordinary  exercise  of  discipline.  Besides,  the  peculiarity 
of  these  cases  must  be  joined  with  a  logical  assumption 
which  proves  too  much,  and  therefore  nothing  at  all,  for 
the  arrogance  which  takes  away  from  the  eldership  to 
an  episcopal  apostolate  the  distinctive  ordinance  of  dis- 
cipline in  the  process.  The  argument  from  these  in- 
stances would  make  Paul  a  primate  among  the  apostles 
themselves,  for  he  is  the  only  one  of  record  who  con- 
cerned himself  immediately  in  the  practice  of  discipline. 
Also,  it  is  reckoned  fairly  that  more  than  a  hundred 
different  churches  existed  in  the  time  of  the  apostles, 
and  it  is  fairly  presumed  that  in  these  new  and  crude 
formations  other  cases  of  disorder  and  offence  occurred 
which  in  the  silence  of  Scripture  must  have  been  han- 
dled by  the  ordinary  benches  of  elders. 

Parity  in  Ordaining  to  Office. 
III.  The  apostles  did  not  reserve  to  themselves  the 
power  of  ordination  more  than  that  of  discipline.  After 
the  ordination  of  deacons  at  the  beginning  of  their 
church-work  (Acts  vi.),  and  the  ordination  of  elders 
in  churches  of  Asia  Minor  by  "  Barnabas  and  Saul " 
(Acts  xiv.),  we  read  no  more  of  ordination  performed 


2G2  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

by  apostles  in  company.  And  we  do  not  find  on  record 
one  instance  of  an  apostle  acting  as  a  lone  ordainer. 
Not  even  in  the  case  of  Paul's  "dearly-beloved  son, 
Timothy/'  was  he  a  lone  ordainer.  When  we  are 
pointed  to  his  words  in  2  Tim.  i.  6  ("  Wherefore  I  put 
thee  in  remembrance  that  thou  stir  up  the  gift  of  God, 
which  is  in  thee  by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands"),  we 
cannot  accept  as  certain  at  all  the  reference  to  be  to  or- 
dination to  office  (as  we  have  seen  in  another  connection), 
and  not  rather  to  a  faith — an  extraordinary  faith,  the  faith 
of  miracles,  peculiar  to  that  age,  and  like  other  gifts  of 
God  bestowed  at  the  laying  on  of  hands  by  a  lone  apostle  : 
"To  another  faith,  by  the  same  Spirit."  1  Cor.  xii.  9. 
This  kind  of  faith  seems  to  have  been  given  to  the 
family  of  Timothy  in  three  generations  coexisting  in 
the  ministry  of  Paul,  as  we  see  in  the  context — the 
grandmother,  the  mother  and  the  son.  This  gift  the 
receiver  is  here  exhorted  to  stir  up  {dva^wTtopeci^)  as  one 
does  a  smouldering  fire  to  a  flame ;  and  the  apostle  adds, 
as  a  reason,  the  nature  of  this  gift :  "  For  God  hath  not 
given  us  the  spirit  of  fear;  but  of  power  and  of  love 
and  of  a  sound  mind."  The  whole  congruity  of  the 
passage  is  spoiled  by  the  notion  of  ordination  to  office. 
Office  in  the  case  of  Timothy  is  explicitly  declared 
in  1  Tim.  iv.  14:  "Neglect  not  the  gift  that  is  in  thee, 
which  was  given  thee  by  prophecy,  with  the  laying  on 
of  the  hands  of  the  presbytery."  Here  no  function  of 
Paul  is  apparent,  unless  it  might  be  as  an  elder  and  one 
of  that  Presbytery.  But  the  dynamic  preposition  ded 
takes  Ttpoipyjzeiac;  ("  by  prophecy  ")  instead  of  the  per- 
sonal action  of  Paul  in  the  other  passage ;  "by  prophecy" 
instead  of  "  by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands,"  it  is  here. 
According  to  the  predictions  which  had  gone  before  upon 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  263 

the  child  of  such  a  family,  he  was  in  due  time  ordained 
a  presbyter  by  a  Presbytery.  According  to  tlie  liigh 
spiritual  power  conferred  on  apostles,  he  next  obtained 
from  God  a  gift  which  fitted  him  for  the  ministry  of 
gifts  as  well  as  of  orders,  and  this  came  at  the  symbolic 
putting  of  the  great  apostle's  hands  upon  his  head.  The 
frivolous  effort  so  often  made  to  shape  these  two  passages 
together  in  a  construction  which  makes  Paul  the  ordainer 
and  the  Presbytery  a  mere  accompaniment  will  never 
satisfy  the  candid  scholar  :  did.  ("  by  ")  and  fitra  ("  wath  ") 
are  familiarly  interchangeable  in  the  Greek,  we  read, 
and  in  the  New  Testament  are  often  changed,  for 
euphony,  to  express  the  same  thing.  Thus,  in  Acts 
XV.  4,  12  these  two  prepositions  are  used  precisely  in 
the  same  sense,  not  to  mention  other  places.  To  say, 
then,  that  in  the  transaction  of  Timothy's  investment 
the  virtue  of  ordination  was  from  Paul  only,  in  d(d,  and 
the  formal  concurrence  merely  of  an  eldership  in  fxezd, 
in  order  to  bolster  the  usage  of  diocesan  episcopacy  by 
a  difference  of  particles,  cannot  be  creditable  to  the  man- 
hood of  sacred  learning  or  to  good  sense. 

But  if  we  should  allow  the  modification  which  a  dif- 
ference between  these  convertible  prepositions  might 
effect  on  the  record  of  Timothy's  ordination,  what  shall 
we  do  with  "  the  presbytery  "  in  this  matter  of  making 
a  bishop  and  diocesan  bishop,  that  Timothy  is  claimed 
to  have  been  made  by  the  hands  of  Paul  ?  Does  prelacy 
admit  of  such  an  accompaniment  now  in  the  consecration 
of  a  diocesan  bishop?  Would  not  all  popery  and  prelacy 
both  revolt  from  an  ordination  so  performed  at  present 
by  the  hands  of  inferiors  laid  upon  the  head  of  a  superior 
in  rank — hands  of  working  elders  on  the  head  of  an 
apostole-bishop — which  of  course  communicate  nothing 


204  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

liiglier  than  themselves?  No  refiuemeut  on  the  prepo- 
sitions can  eliminate  the  eldership,  and  other  evasions 
must  be  sought  for  to  escape  the  presbyterian  ordina- 
tion of  Timothy.  The  word  "  presbytery  "  {npeofiuTiptov), 
inasmuch  as  Peter  and  John  severally  called  themselves 
presbyter  (elder),  must  mean  here  the  college  of  apostles, 
it  is  said,  rather  than  the  council  of  presbyters.  Yet 
this  word  was  undoubtedly  the  old  synagogue-name  for 
the  bench  of  elders,  and  was  always  used  by  the  apostolic 
Fathers  to  denote  an  eldership  meeting,  never  the  apos- 
tolic assembly  or  college.  It  is  also  asserted  that  the 
Christian  Church  should  be  formed  on  the  model  of  the 
temple  and  its  hierarchy,  and  not  on  the  synagogue  and 
its  humanly-invented  simplicity.  How  shall  these 
positions  be  reconciled?  For  the  sake  of  making 
Timothy  a  diocesan  bishop  will  they  take  for  this 
one  occasion  a  synagogue  denomination  for  the  twelve 
apostles  in  council,  their  own  Ignatius  himself  to  the 
contrary  notwithstanding  ?  and  if  the  Presbytery  in  that 
ordination  of  Timothy  was  a  council  of  apostles  under  a 
singular  name,  and  the  apostle  Paul,  as  they  say,  was  the 
ordainer  alone  "  by  the  putting  on  of  my  hands,"  what 
an  attitude  it  gives  to  him  in  the  midst  of  fellow-apostles, 
making  him  the  archapostle,  with  a  pre-eminence  which 
he  resisted  in  others  and  disavowed  in  himself  through 
the  whole  tenor  of  his  life  and  writing  !  Again,  if  the 
term  rendered  "Presbytery"  mean  office  itself,  as  Calvin 
once  thought  and  as  some  Episcopalians  of  our  day  have 
reaffirmed,  then  either  the  apostles  acted  in  the  capacity 
of  elders  in  giving  the  office  such  a  name,  or  the  result  of 
their  action  was  the  ordination  of  an  elder,  the  officer 
made  corresponding  to  the  designation  of  the  office,  or 
the  abstract  office  itself  must  have  had  hands  to  lay  on 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  265 

the  living  personal  incumbent;  which,  of  course,  would 
be  senseless.  We  must,  therefore,  escape  from  every 
dilemma  on  the  obvious  import  of  the  phrase  by  recog- 
nizing a  body  of  elders  separating  Timothy  to  the  minis- 
try of  their  own  order  by  the  laying  on  of  their  own 
hands.  They  could  not  invest  him  with  an  office  higher 
than  their  own. 

And  yet  so  high  was  this  office  of  their  own  reckoned 
in  apostolic  times  that  the  first  full  proceeding  in  the 
solemnity  of  ordination  actually  separated  to  its  work, 
at  the  bidding  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  "  Barnabas  and  Saul" 
— the  first  already  in  the  ministry  of  gifts,  the  second 
already  called  to  be  an  apostle.  Acts  xiii.  In  this  trans- 
action the  complete  pattern  of  such  procedure,  even  if  it 
were  exceptional  in  being  designed  for  a  special  mission- 
ary-tour, we  see  the  action  of  a  Presbytery,  the  model 
way  of  consecration  to  office  in  the  Church — fasting, 
prayer  and  laying  on  of  hands — without  the  slightest 
regard  or  deference  of  inferiors  to  superiors  either  in 
rank  or  in  talent,  "  prophets  and  teachers,"  without  the 
name  of  "bishop"  in  the  number,  ordaining,  at  the  call 
of  God's  eternal  Spirit,  the  great  a})ostle  of  the  Gentiles. 

Parity  in  Preaching. 
IV.  There  is  no  gradation  among  preachers  indicated 
in  all  the  ordinations  mentioned  in  Scripture.  Like  the 
ordinance  of  baptism,  ordination  to  preach  was  complete 
and  finished  once  for  all  when  it  was  rightly  solemnized 
once.  Probation  of  candidates  must  precede  the  solem- 
nity, not  follow  it.  The  so-called  "  three  orders"  in  the 
ministry  are  essentially  but  one  order.  A  stepping-stone 
at  the  door  is  no  part  of  the  door  itself.  The  deacon's 
order  in  preaching  is  no  distinct  office  with  which  a  can- 


266  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

didate  feels  contented  to  abide  "  faithful  even  unto  death," 
any  more  than  license  to  preach  in  the  way  of  probation 
will  satisfy  the  Presbyterian  student  and  his  Presbytery 
that  he  ought  to  remain  in  that  capacity,  making  full 
proof  of  his  ministry  at  that  degree  of  inchoation. 

The  affectation  of  Judaism  after  the  secular  state  of  it 
perished  began  to  call  the  Christian  deacons  *'  Levites." 
These  had  been  servitors,  instructors,  musicians,  etc.,  in 
the  old  economy,  and  the  name,  transferred  to  deacons, 
naturally  suggested  similar  occupations  for  the  new  iu 
the  same  varieties  of  character  and  alternation.  Besides,  at 
this  time  the  bishops,  though  not  yet  diocesan,  were  eager 
to  possess  the  sacerdotal  functions  which  now  sought  the 
sympathies  of  Christianity  as  a  castaway  priesthood  of 
the  temple.  The  Levites  had  always  been  excluded  from 
priestly  performance,  though  serving  it,  as  ministers  of 
religion,  beside  the  family  of  Aaron.  The  Christian 
deacons,  with  such  a  resemblance  of  historical  disability, 
became  the  favorites  of  aspiring  bishops — their  helps, 
their  messengers,  their  mouthpiece — without  rivalry  ex- 
cited, while  ruling  elders  were  ugly  obstacles  in  the  way 
of  their  progress.  It  needed  only  the  promotion  of 
deacons  to  some  degree  of  ministry  in  the  word  to  bring 
them  above  the  elders'  bench  in  popular  estimation,  and 
so  work  out  of  existence  that  sturdy  line  of  dissent  which 
would  continue  the  primitive  simplicity  of  elder.  Thus 
deaconship  was  compromised  aud  the  original  eldership 
suppressed  on  the  pathway  of  return  to  sacerdotalism  by 
men  who  claimed  to  be  successors  of  those  founders  that 
had  called  for  the  election  of  deacons  to  **  serve  tables  " 
in  order  that  commissioned  preachers  might  "give  them- 
selves to  prayer  and  the  ministry  of  the  word."  One- 
ness of  the  commission  to  preach  and  to  baptize  had  no 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  267 

number  three  between  the  lines  to  be  discovered  only 
when  the  Supper  would  be  turned  to  sacrifice,  the  elder- 
ship to  priesthood,  and  the  oversight  of  one  flock  to  lord- 
ship over  many  flocks  in  the  heritage  of  God. 

To  say  that  two  of  "  the  seven  "  originally  ordained  as 
deacons — Stephen  and  Philip — must  have  been  preachers, 
according  to  the  record  of  their  lives  in  Scripture,  is  too 
much,  and  therefore  nothing,  in  the  argument  for  mak- 
ing a  preacher  of  the  deacon,  because  these  two — and 
probably  the  whole  number — were  preachers  before  this 
appointment  in  the  ministry  of  gifts,  without  previous 
ordination  at  all,  as  the  qualification  premised  for  the 
seven  was  "  honest  report,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and 
wisdom."  And  the  seven  themselves  are  not  called 
"  deacons "  at  all,  but  "  men  appointed  over  this  busi- 
ness" to  superintend  the  work  of  deacons,  already  in 
the  Church  from  of  old,  and  needing  now  to  be  recon- 
structed. This  was  the  overtask  which  the  main  wit- 
nesses for  Christ,  "  whom  he  named  '  apostles,'  "  were 
obliged  to  decline  for  the  stress  of  public  ordinances — 
prayer  and  preaching — which  were  the  burden  of  their 
testimony.  Speaking  for  men  to  God  and  for  God  to 
men  was  the  double  work  of  witnessing  for  Christ  that 
continually  engaged  the  power  and  wisdom  of  apostles. 
Acts  vi.  1-6. 

Parity   in  Jurisdiction. 

V.  Beyond  the  limits  of  one  parish  no  one  man  was 
authorized  in  primitive  Christianity  as  a  bishop  to  ex- 
tend his  jurisdiction.  Territorial  extension,  which  had 
a  plurality  of  particular  churches  included,  was  governed 
by  representative  assemblies  only,  in  all  its  common  con- 
cerns of  church-work  and  rule.     The  minute  details  of 


268  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

episcopal  duty  in  the  smallest  oversight  were  enough  to 
fill  the  hands  of  Gregory  Thaumaturgus  at  the  middle 
of  the  third  century,  the  miracle  of  whose  pastorate  in 
New  Csesarea,  Pontus,  consisted  in  finding  but  seventeen 
Christians  when  he  assumed  it  and  in  leaving  but  seven- 
teen pagans  there  at  his  death.  Early  in  the  second 
century  Ignatius  was  born,  and  about  the  middle  of  that 
century  wrote  to  Polycarp,  bishop  of  Smyrna,  concern- 
ing the  duties  of  a  bishop  :  "  Give  thyself  to  prayer 
without  ceasing.  Be  watchful,  possessing  a  sleepless 
spirit.  Speak  to  every  man  separately  as  God  enables 
thee.  Bear  the  infirmities  of  all.  Let  not  widows  be 
neglected.  Be  thou,  after  the  Lord,  their  protector  and 
friend.  Let  nothing  be  done  without  thy  consent.  Let 
your  assembling  together  be  of  frequent  occurrence ; 
seek  after  all  by  name.  Do  not  despise  either  male 
or  female  slaves,  yet  neither  let  them  be  puffed  up 
with  conceit,  but  rather  let  them  submit  themselves 
the  more  for  the  glory  of  God,  that  they  may  obtain 
from  God  a  better  liberty.  Let  them  not  wish  to  be  set 
free  at  the  public  expense,  that  they  be  not  found  slaves 
to  their  own  desires."  Many  similar  citations  might  be 
made  from  apostolic  Fathers  which  manifestly  imply  the 
relation  of  a  bishop  to  the  particular  charge  of  a  pastor's 
life  in  one  parish  only,  and  the  qualifications  for  such  a 
life  laid  down  in  Paul's  directions  to  Timothy.  Not  a 
line  or  a  word  in  all  their  literature  implies  the  suffragan 
relation  of  any  bishop  to  another  bishop ;  and  the  quota- 
tions above  are  taken  purposely  from  Ignatius,  who  is 
the  oracle  of  that  age  to  modern  prelacy.  In  the  con- 
cluding paragraph  of  that  letter  to  Polycarp  he  asks 
him  to  write  similar  letters  to  "  the  adjacent  churches," 
because  he,  Ignatius,  was  unable  to  do  it  on  account  of 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  269 

being  hurried  "suddenly  to  sail"  away  from  his  own 
church.  These  incidental  topics  and  allusions  evidently 
reveal  the  fact  that  the  parochial  bishop  was  not  subject 
to  a  diocesan  overseer  in  the  second  centurv,  thou«:h  in 
equal  correspondence  with  other  bishops  for  nuitual  en- 
couragement and  counsel. 

But  toward  the  end  of  the  same  century  historians 
find  the  leaven  of  ambition  working  out  upon  the  whole 
lump  from  the  strong  and  rich  churches  in  large  centres 
of  population  where  the  bishops  of  single  parishes,  when 
their  people  began  to  colonize  and  create  other  parishes, 
followed  them  with  reluctant  leave  or  propelling  consent 
in  order  to  secure  a  patronage  over  them  and  bind  them 
to  the  mother-church  as  chapels  of  ease ;  and,  if  no 
longer  dependent  upon  her  in  the  way  of  support,  lean- 
ing upon  her  with  reverence  and  accepting  still  the  over- 
sight of  her  bishop  even  in  the  subjection,  to  some  extent, 
of  their  new  and  probably  younger  bishops  they  had 
chosen.  The  subordination  of  newer  churches  in  the 
process  of  Church  extension  became  a  measure  of  peace 
and  unity  in  this  way,  and  so  reconciled  the  most  watch- 
ful and  devoted  men  of  the  generations,  then  passing 
through  persecutions  without  and  heresies  within,  to 
any  form  of  expediency  that  seemed  to  compact  the 
visible  Church  and  make  her  frontage  of  militancy 
"■  fair  as  the  moon,  and  clear  as  the  sun,  and  terrible 
as  an  army  with  banners." 

Developed  in  this  way  through  turbulent  times  in  the 
world,  the  Christian  Church  became  a  power  on  earth 
and  attracted  the  eye  of  imperial  ambition  itself,  which 
hitherto  had  been  hostile.  A  political  organization  was 
now  discovered  as  practicable  among  the  spiritual  hosts 
which    were    increasing,    harmless,  and    yet    invincible. 


270  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

How  far  the  sagacity  of  Constantine,  thus  informed, 
may  have  led  to  his  conversion  and  made  the  halo  of 
that  cross  which  he  was  said  to  have  seen  in  the  heavens 
we  need  not  conjecture  in  this  connection.  It  is  enough 
to  know  that  in  the  establishment  of  Christianity  by  his 
power  he  consigned  to  her  synods  the  internal  and  re- 
served to  himself  the  external  construction  of  the  Chris- 
tian Church.  This  was  modeled  after  the  fashion  of  his 
empire,  and  of  course  with  gradations  of  rank,  aristo- 
cratic inequality,  bishop  over  bishop,  synod  over  synod, 
with  a  last  resort  to  his  imperial  chamber  to  ratify  every 
constitution  and  confirm  every  decision,  both  external  and 
internal.  Even  the  vocabulary  of  State,  army  and  pub- 
lican was  now  transfused  into  the  language  of  apostolical 
religion,  and  hence  "diocese"  became  the  designation  of 
that  larger  field  in  which  a  parish  was  made  a  smaller 
and  subordinate  part  by  the  decree  of  an  emperor,  the 
bishops  of  particular  churches  being  already,  as  we  have 
seen,  too  well  prepared,  and  even  eager,  in  the  dominant 
cities,  to  accept  this  modification. 

The  dissenters  of  that  age  were  thus  constrained  by 
civil  despotism  and  ecclesiastical  encroachment  com- 
bined. The  country  bishops  or  pastors — called  chor- 
episcopi — resisted  and  were  repressed  by  councils  made 
up  of  prelates  alone.  The  ruling  elders — always  an 
obstacle  to  the  ambition  of  metropolitan  pastors — were 
excluded  from  councils,  and  even,  at  length,  from  their 
benches  in  the  Christian  synagogue,  and  the  deacons, 
more  tractable,  were  uplifted  over  elders,  graded  in  their 
own  rank  and  made  preachers — all  but  the  newly-made 
subdeacou.  Human  and  not  divine,  imperial  and  not 
republican,  forceful  and  not  persuasive,  despotic  and  not 
free,  is  the  origin  of  diocese  iu  the  Church  of  Christ, 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  271 

and  such  a  secular  spread  of  spiritual  jurisdiction  natu- 
rally and  soon  led  to  intolerance  and  persecution.  All 
the  pretensions  to  unity  of  external  organization — which 
was  the  plausible  pretext  of  the  beginning — were  un- 
masked so  much  by  quarrels  among  diocesans  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  who  lived  and  fought  with  one  another 
like  feudal  barons,  that  a  wonder  in  Ciiurch  history  is 
how  such  a  perversion  of  bishoprics  could  have  passed 
into  any  branch  of  the  Protestant  Church.  No  sanction 
from  canonical  scripture  could  ever  be  found  or  ever 
attempted  fairly.  As  well  might  we  go  to  the  Bible  for 
the  whole  pile  of  gradation  made  by  Constantine  upon 
his  platform,  beginning  with  himself  as  the  head — 
patriarchs,  exarchs,  metropolitans,  archbishops,  and 
bishops  diocesan,  all  alike  the  creation  of  his  profane 
omnipotence. 

About  a  thousand  years  before  the  great  Reformation 
some  apocryphal  transcriber  had  contrived  surreptiti- 
ously to  insert  two  postscripts  in  the  sacred  canon 
apparently  to  this  very  intent,  that  the  subsequent 
Bibles  might  appear  to  give  apostolical  sanction  to  this 
diocesan  episcopacy.  One  of  these  we  see  at  the  end  of 
the  Second  Epistle  to  Timothy  and  the  other  at  the  end 
of  Titus,  the  one  reading  thus  of  Timothy  :  "  Ordained 
the  first  bishop  of  the  church  of  the  Ephesians ;"  the 
other  of  Titus :  "  Ordained  the  first  bishop  of  the 
church  of  the  Cretians."  With  eminent  candor  as  well 
as  learning  the  recent  Revision  of  the  New  Testament, 
begun  and  finished  under  the  auspices  of  Euglish  and 
American  scholars  of  high  official  standing  in  the  re- 
spective churches,  ignores  the  postscripts  at  length  and 
utterly  expunges  them,  but  the  presumption  that  Tim- 
othy and  Titus  had  each  a  diocese  by  appointment  of 


272  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  apostles  yet  lingers  behind  and  calls  for  continued 
review. 

(1)  Timothy  was  an  evangelist  expressly  so  called 
(2  Tim.  iv.  5) — Titus  also,  though  not  so  directly  styled 
in  the  text  of  inspiration.  His  work  to  which  he  was 
appointed  was  the  same  precisely  as  that  of  Timothy, 
and,  like  him,  he  is  called  "my  own  son"  by  the  apostle 
Paul,  and  also  "  my  partner  and  fellow-helper."  2  Cor. 
viii.  23.  Evangelists  were  also  regarded  as  next  to  the 
apostles,  being  their  companions,  deputies,  helpers,  agents ; 
and  it  was  no  more  compatible  with  their  vocation  to 
become  bishops  of  any  degree  with  a  fixed  local  super- 
inteudency  than  with  that  of  Paul  himself.  They  were 
always  actually  travelling  or  making  arrangements  for 
travel  and  change.  Thus,  in  these  very  same  docu- 
ments where  they  have  been  so  artfully  countersigned 
as  bishops  we  have  the  plainest  internal  evidence  that 
they  were  not  such.  Although  at  the  beginning  of  the 
letters  to  Timothy  the  apostle  wrote,  "As  I  besought 
thee  to  abide  still  at  Ephesus,  Avhen  I  went  into  Mace- 
donia," etc.,  he  writes  at  the  end,  "  Do  thy  diligence  to 
come  shortly  unto  me ;"  "  Take  Mark,  and  bring  him 
with  thee ;  for  he  is  profitable  to  me  for  the  ministry  ;" 
"  The  cloke  that  I  left  at  Troas  with  Carpus,  when  thou 
comest,  bring  with  thee,  and  the  books,  but  especially 
the  parchments."  Surely  these  are  not  congruous  in- 
junctions to  be  laid  upon  a  bishop  of  paramount  au- 
thority and  permanent  abode  at  Ephesus.  Similar 
exactly  is  the  correspondence  with  Titus.  At  the 
beginning  we  read,  "  For  this  cause  left  I  thee  in  Crete, 
that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the  things  that  are 
wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city,  as  I  had 
appointed   thee."     At  the  end   we   read,   "  Be   diligent 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  273 

to  come  unto  me  to  Nicopolis ;  for  I  have  determined 
there  to  winter ;"  "  Bring  Zenas  the  lawyer  and  Apollos 
on  their  journey  diligently,  that  nothing  be  wanting 
unto  them."  On  the  whole  face  of  the  pastoral  Epis- 
tles we  have  strongly  marked  the  distinct  enumeration 
of  ascension-gifts  in  Eph.  iv.  11:  "He  gave  some, 
apostles ;  and  some,  prophets ;  and  some,  evangelists ; 
and  some,  pastors  and  teachers."  Pastors  are  identical 
with  bishops  in  the  New-Testament  sense,  and  therefore 
bishops  are  different  and  distinct  from  evangelists  alike 
in  the  name  and  in  the  narratives  of  New-Testament 
history,  where  no  bishop  over  bishop  is  ever  even 
hinted  at. 

(2)  Beyond  the  supplementary  help  rendered  to  the 
apostle — which,  of  course,  must  be  extraordinary — there 
is  nothing  special  in  the  functions  of  those  evangelists 
that  is  at  all  above  the  prerogatives  of  a  pastor  in  one 
particular  church,  the  parochial  bishop.  They  are  com- 
missioned to  ordain  elders,  and  that  with  the  most  care- 
ful discrimination  of  the  proper  qualifications  which 
indicate  a  prior  call  of  God  to  the  office;  and  these 
elders  are  declared  to  be  the  same  as  bishops  in  the 
rank  of  office,  the  two  designations  being  always  and 
undoubtedly  convertible  in  Holy  Scripture.  These 
elders  or  bishops  thus  inducted  are  in  turn  authorized 
to  select  and  ordain  others  like  themselves,  the  rule  of 
transmission  being  so  clearly  given  (2  Tim.  ii.  2)  to 
commit  what  had  been  heard  from  the  apostle  or  his 
deputies  to  "  faithful  men  who  would  be  able  to  teach 
others  also."  To  say  that  these  evangelists,  in  trans- 
mitting office  on  such  a  level,  were  individual  men,  and 
therefore  not  a  Presbytery  or  elders  in  so  acting,  but 
diocesan  bishops,  no  matter  by  what  name  we  call  them, 

18 


274  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

because  a  lone  individual  officiating  so  means,  of  course, 
a  superiority  of  rank  to  the  elders  made  by  his  hand, 
is  the  logical  vice  of  begging  the  question  to  which  our 
prelatic  brethren  seem  to  be  so  much  addicted.  We 
deny  the  premise  that  any  officer  is  to  be  considered 
superior  to  another  merely  because  he  is  alone  at  his 
duty ;  we  deny  that  the  power  of  ordination  must  be 
reposed  in  a  bishop  of  higher  grade  than  the  bishop 
or  elder  invested  by  his  hands.  We  affirm  that  the 
ordainer  and  the  ordained  are  equal  to  each  other,  and 
that  the  ordaining  elder  may  be  alone  as  a  committee 
and  representative  of  his  Presbytery,  either  at  home  or 
abroad,  in  home  or  foreign  missionary  fields,  just  as 
Timothy  and  Titus  were  each  alone  as  charged  by  the 
apostle  Paul.  Nothing  is  more  familiar  in  the  solemnity 
of  ordination  by  a  Presbytery  than  the  chai'ge  to  an 
individual  to  be  faithful  in  doing  what  he  can  do  only 
as  one  of  a  plurality  or  a  quorum  individualized  in  the 
special  duties  of  a  Presbytery  as  well  as  in  the  common 
and  separate  duties  of  the  pastor  or  evangelist. 

(3)  The  argument  for  a  superior  grade  of  office  in  the 
ordainer  because  he  was  alone  at  Ephesus  and  at  Crete 
in  exercising  the  function  is  also  inconsistent  with  an- 
other averment — that  elders  existed  at  both  these  places 
before  the  mission  of  Timothy  to  one  and  of  Titus  to 
the  other.  On  this  presumption  it  is  argued  against  us 
that  Presbyteries  or  elders  must  have  been  superseded 
or  set  aside  by  the  advent  of  Timothy  and  Titus  re- 
spectively to  perform  ordinations  alone,  and  therefore 
the  method  of  diocesan  episcopacy  must  have  been 
inaugurated  there  and  then.  Here,  again,  is  tlie  petifio 
prinoipii  exemplified  in  mere  assertion.  On  the  inspec- 
tion of  those  pastoral  Epistles  there  is  no  evidence  that 


PARITY  OF  MINISTERS.  275 

either  of  the  evangelists  acted  alone  in  ordaining  or  that 
any  organizations  had  been  previously  made  in  the  cities 
of  Crete;  and  if  there  had  been,  the  disorders  existing 
and  the  dangers  impending  among  the  crude  beginnings 
and  the  inexperienced  officers  of  either  or  both  those  fields 
required  the  visitation  of  an  apostle  or  his  legate  to  set 
in  order  things  which  were  wanting  and  leave  explicit 
and  exact  instructions  to  guide  the  people  and  their 
elders  in  doctrine,  usage,  election  and  government  alike. 
The  formative  state  of  a  social  compact,  civil  or  sacred, 
needs  outside  and  extraordinary  influence  to  make  it 
normal. 

(4)  In  order  to  widen  the  jurisdiction  and  to  elevate 
the  rank  of  bishop  over  bishop,  the  advocates  of  prelacy 
have  contrived  a  singular  dilemma  for  themselves  in  the 
chronology  of  Ephesus.  The  First  Epistle  to  Timothy, 
which  contains  most  of  the  proper  directions  for  episco- 
pal oversight,  must  have  been  written  either  before  or 
after  the  memorable  interview  of  Paul  himself  with  the 
elders  of  Ephesus  mentioned  in  Acts  xx.  28.  If  before, 
and  the  evangelist  was  then  abiding  at  Ephesus  as  an 
overseer  of  bishops,  why  does  not  the  apostle  refer  them 
to  the  diocesan  already  set  over  them  for  the  regulation 
of  elders  and  everything  else  pertaining  to  pastoral  duty 
and  responsibility  ?  Why  does  he  say,  without  mention 
of  Timothy  at  all,  whom  he  had  settled  there  to  say  the 
same  things,  "Take  heed  therefore  unto  yourselves,  and 
to  all  the  flock,  over  the  which  the  Holy  Ghost  hath 
made  you  overseers,  to  feed  the  church  of  God,  which 
he  hath  purchased  with  his  own  blood.  For  I  know, 
that  after  my  departing,  shall  grievous  wolves  enter  in 
among  you,  not  sparing  the  flock"?  Had  their  diocesan 
become  already  incapable  or  unfaithful  or  non-resident 


276  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

in  two  years  or  less  after  his  consecration,  and  he  a 
spiritual  son  of  Paul,  possessing  the  miraculous  faith 
of  the  age  at  the  putting  on  of  the  apostle's  own  hands? 
Or,  taking  the  later  date,  after  this  meeting  of  the  elders 
with  Paul  at  Miletus,  we  resort  to  the  subsequent  Epis- 
tle of  Paul  to  the  Ephesiaus  themselves,  that  sublimest 
of  sacred  letters,  replete  with  the  mystery  aud  majesty 
of  the  gospel  Church,  and  yet  abounding  with  instruc- 
tions of  the  pastoral  care,  minutely  aud  familiarly  given 
as  a  superior  bishop  could  write,  and  yet  no  word  of 
Timothy  being  there  as  a  bishop  of  any  sort  aud  at 
any  time.  Tychicus,  and  not  Timothy,  has  the  recom- 
mendation at  the  close :  "  A  beloved  brother  aud  faith- 
ful minister  in  the  Lord,  shall  make  known  to  vou  all 
things,  whom  I  have  sent  unto  you  for  the  same  pur- 
pose, that  ye  might  know  our  affairs,  and  that  he  might 
comfort  your  hearts."  On  one  aud  either  horn  of  this 
dilemma  must  hang  the  claim  of  prelacy,  for  the  itiner- 
ating evangelism  of  Timothy  could  not  possibly  be  im- 
paled by  either. 


CHAPTER  XI. 

RULING  ELDERS, 

rpHESE  are  the  aboriginal  elders  of  the  Church,  con- 
-L    tinued    through    all   dispensations.      Thej  existed 
before  Moses,  with  patriarchal  descent,  and  were  called 
into  the  service  of  religion   before  its  revelation   was 
penned,  or  "the  God  of  Abraham"  would  not  have 
said  to  Moses,  "  Go  and  gather  the  elders  of  Israel  to- 
gether ;"  "  And  thou  shalt  come,  thou  and  the  elders  of 
Israel,  unto  the  king  of  Egypt,  and  ye  shall  say  unto 
him.  The  Lord  God  of  the  Hebrews  hath  met  with  us," 
etc.     These  commissioners  of  the  Most  Higli  M-ere  also 
representatives  of  the  people,  for  another  familiar  desig- 
nation is  "elders  of  the  people."     And  yet,  lest  their 
close  identification  with  the  represented  should  ever  lead 
the  people  to  regard  them  as  laical,  and  not  official  in 
connection  with  Moses,  and  this  great  prophet  should  be 
left  without  an  order  of  special  organization  to  hold  up 
his  hands  in  the  burden  of  that  ministry  to  which  he 
was  called,  the  Almighty  deigned  to  charter  a  selection 
of  that  eldership  to  help  him:  "And  the  Lord  said 
unto  Moses,  Gather  unto  me  seventy  men  of  the  elders 
of  Israel,  whom  thou  knowest  to  be  the  elders  of  the 
people  and  officers  over  them  :  and  bring  them  unto  the 
tabernacle   of   the   congregation,  that   they  may  stand 
there  with  thee.     And  I  will  come  down  and  talk  with 

277 


278  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

thee  there ;  and  I  will  take  of  the  spirit  which  is  upon 
thee,  and  will  put  it  upon  them  ;  and  they  shall  bear 
the  burden  of  the  people  with  thee,  that  thou  bear  it 
not  thyself  alone."  Num.  i.  16,  17.  Thus  "the  church 
in  the  wilderness  "  had  ruling  elders,  provided  by  divine 
appointment,  to  counsel  and  encourage  their  missionary- 
leader;  and  these  are  called  by  inspiration  "officers," 
and  not  "  laymen,"  and  imbued  with  the  same  spirit  as 
Moses  himself.    . 

This  divine  ordination  has  never  been  revoked.  When 
the  Hebrew  pilgrimage  was  ended  and  the  settlements 
in  Canaan  were  completed,  "elders  of  the  city"  and 
"  elders  of  every  city  "  composed  the  main  authority  of 
government,  in  local  distribution  as  well  as  national 
Sanhedrin,  and  of  course  that  theocratic  constitution  of 
the  Old-Testament  people  would  have  elders  to  rule  in  the 
ecclesia  as  well  as  in  the  municipality — the  conventicle 
of  moral  and  religious  instruction  as  well  as  the  bench 
of  justice  at  the  gate.  A  plurality  of  ruling  elders  in 
session  became  the  germ  of  organism  for  assemblies  of 
revealed  religion  under  all  circumstances  of  the  nation 
— under  judges,  under  kings,  in  empire  and  in  captivity. 
No  political  revolution  even  where  Church  and  State 
were  united,  no  change  of  dynasty,  no  loss  of  temple 
and  altar,  no  lapse  of  covenant  or  decadence  of  piety, 
could  abolish  this  one  feature  of  eldership  in  the  ancient 
Church.  It  waited  intact  for  the  redemption  of  Israel, 
when  a  greater  than  Moses  would  come  to  gather  elders, 
to  be  joined  with  him  and  share  his  spirit  in  the  mis- 
sion of  his  ministry. 

Ruling  and  teaching  are  inseparable  from  each  other 
in  some  proportion.  The  ruler,  judicial  or  executive, 
must  explain  to  some  extent  the  law  which  is  applied 


RULING  ELDERS.  279 

with  authority ;  the  teacher  must  govern  to  some  degree 
the  attention,  decorum  and  docility  with  which  instruc- 
tion is  received.  The  officer  must  be  interpreter  of  his 
own  functions,  to  himself  and  others;  the  instructor 
must  exercise  the  rules  of  logic  and  common  sense  by 
which  men  are  convinced  and  persuaded,  or  he  is  un- 
worthy of  the  name.  Men  of  age  and  of  experience 
denoted  in  the  name  of  elder,  senior,  presbyter,  English, 
Latin  or  Greek,  have  in  all  ages  been  regarded  as  ordi- 
narily fittest  for  both  ruling  and  teaching ;  and  conse- 
quently the  distinction  possible  to  be  made  among  elders 
in  the  official  sense  must  be  a  difference  of  proportion 
in  these  constituent  elements  of  qualification — that  is, 
endowment  and  education  of  speech  will  luake  one  elder 
a  teacher  chiefly ;  and  good  sense,  with  becoming  tact, 
without  comparative  learning,  will  make  another  chiefly 
a  ruler ;  and  thus  in  every  age  the  generic  elders  natu- 
rally divide,  the  distinction  being  made  more  or  less 
apparent  according  to  circumstances  and  to  change  of 
dispensation. 

In  Old-Testament  times,  when  Levites  were  dis- 
tributed in  forty-eight  cities  through  all  the  tribes  for 
the  purposes  of  common  education,  and  prophets  trav- 
ersed the  land  with  the  spirit  and  demonstration  of 
natural  and  supernatural  gifts,  the  province  of  elders 
in  the  Church  was  mainly  ruling  in  the  direction  of 
exercises,  of  reading  and  speaking  and  of  administering 
discipline.  In  the  absence  of  stated  supply,  Levite, 
prophet  or  gifted  passenger  whom  they  could  trust 
in  addressing  the  people,  the  elders  would  designate 
one  of  themselves,  with  consent  of  the  congregation, 
to  conduct  the  ordinances  of  worship  and  instruction. 
It  was   in   accordance  with   these  traditions   that   our 


280  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Lord  aud  his  disciples  were  everywhere  so  freely  ad- 
mitted to  the  teacher's  desk  in  the  synagogues.  It 
was  in  the  tacit  approval  of  such  regulations  of  order 
and  continuance  of  the  same  in  furtherance  of  the 
gospel  that  the  New  Testament  Avas  knit  to  the  Old 
in  form,  and  that  elderships  were  virtually  ordained 
for  ever  to  govern  the  Church  of  Christ. 

While   apostles  were    iu    the    field,  aud    the   accom- 
panying ministry  of  gifts,  without  ordination  by  man, 
elders  seemed  to  be  engaged  in  ruling  only.     Being  a 
constituent  portion  of  the  first  general  council  at  Jeru- 
salem (Acts  XV.),  they  participated  in  deliberation  and  de- 
cision without  prominence  in  speaking  and  debate,  though 
effective  iu  voting  and  zealous  in  acting  harmoniously 
with  the  great  witnesses  aud  the  gifted  "  brethren,"  the 
apostolical  associates  and  assistants  going  "  to  and  fro  " 
with  the  gospel  in  those  days.     The  settled  officers  in 
organized    churches   called    '•'  bishops   and    deacons " — 
overseers  and   servants — were,  as  of  old,  guiding   and 
guarding   their   flocks    respectively    against    imposition, 
meanwhile,  discriminating  true  missionaries  from  false 
in  procuring    itinerant   supply  for  their    "synagogue," 
and  conducting  divine  service  by  one  or  more  of  the 
elders  when  there  was  no  Pentecostal  preacher  at  hand. 
Some   fourteen  years   after  the  general    assembly  at 
Jerusalem — iu    which    the    elders   appeared    to    be   all 
ruling  in  character — the  apostle  Paul,  writing  to  Timo- 
thy, said  the  elder  should  be  "  apt  to  teach,"  repeating 
the  same  term  when    he  wrote    the  Second    Epistle  to 
Timothy,  a  year  later.  Ch.  ii.  24.     In  both  places  it  is 
generical    in  sense,  meaning   both    public   and   private 
teaching,  and  either  active  or  passive,  teaching  or  teach- 
able, in  the    etymon  and    the  context,  as  we  shall  see 


RULING  ELDERS.  281 

again.  This  predicate  of  the  bishop  or  elder  is  there- 
fore obviously  susceptible  of  distinction  in  kind  as  well 
as  in  the  name  itself  given  to  the  officer,  private,  social, 
public  and  judicial  teaching  all  included. 

Circumstances  and  events,  as  well  as  words,  will  make 
logical  distinctions.  When  the  elders  were  at  length  left 
alone  to  teach  as  the  supernatural  endowments  and  call- 
ing were  withdrawn  partially  or  altogether,  and  the 
supervening  commission  to  preach  and  baptize  rested 
on  the  benches  of  eldership,  the  traditional  proportion 
between  teaching  and  ruling  must  of  course  become 
changed :  to  answer  the  distinction  of  heralds  and 
judges  now  devolved,  of  necessity,  upon  eldership 
economy.  '^  Who  will  go  for  us?"  and  "  Who  will  stay 
with  us"  in  preaching  the  gospel  of  this  kingdom? 
must  have  been  the  great  questions  of  that  primordial 
crisis  in  every  congregation  of  believers.  All  the  elders 
in  the  pku^ality  of  each  particular  church  would  not  be 
qualified,  nor  desire,  to  become  ministers  of  the  word, 
and  would  feel  it  their  duty  and  calling  to  abide  as 
rulers  in  the  church  and  teachers  in  the  family  apart. 
And,  on  the  other  hand,  one  or  more  of  the  elders 
existing  or  of  the  people  desiring  to  be  elders,  being 
inwardly  moved  by  the  Spirit  and  externally  recognized 
as  apt  and  blameless,  would  be  designated  for  this  min- 
istry by  the  other  elders  and  by  consent  of  the  people.* 

Thus  the  distinction  between  teaching  and  ruling 
elders  would  naturally  begin  to  be  made,  and  the 
emphasis  of  it  would  be  increased  apace  with  the 
difference  of  occupation  and  diligence  therein  of  the 
preacher,  being  given  to  it  "wholly,"  and  his  "profit- 

*  Jerome,  Ep.  146,  "Ad  Evang.,"  affirms  that  the  elders  elected 
the  bishop  from  their  own  bench  at  Alexandria  until  the  year  265, 


282  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ing"  more  and  more  appearing  to  all  men.  Though 
the  same  episcopate,  or  oversight,  remained  common  to 
the  whole  bench  of  elders,  the  title  "  bishop  "  would  be 
given  especially  to  the  teaching  elder,  whose  whole  time 
and  ability  must  be  given  to  its  duties.  The  name,  the 
qualifications  and  the  total  consecration  exonerating  him 
from  the  ordinary  obligation  to  live  by  the  work  of  his 
own  hands  must  make  distinction  enough  to  require 
another  ordination  to  signalize  the  new  functions  with 
which  a  standing  ministry  is  clothed  as  apostles  leave 
the  field  to  succeeding  elders.  The  distinction,  as  it 
widens,  will  certainly  make  another  class  of  elders, 
entitled  to  a  distinct  ordination,  but  never  so  as  to 
supersede  and  abolish  the  residuary  portion  of  elder- 
ship or  deprive  them  of  the  name.  On  the  contrary, 
it  enhances  the  importance  of  this  order  as  auxiliary 
and  indispensable  in  proportion  to  the  advancement  and 
the  success  of  teaching  elders. 

Deference  to  the  word  of  God  should  ask  no  more 
of  the  Scriptures  than  this  inferential  expose  of  facts 
implied  in  the  revelation  expressly  given  to  justify 
the  distinction  made  by  Presbytery  among  the  elders 
that  compose  it.  The  fair  presumption  of  common 
sense  and  the  deduction  of  sound  reason  from  premises 
of  inspiration  are  only  stimulated  to  legitimate  con- 
jecture in  filling  up  the  outline  and  formulating  the  in- 
duction by  hints  in  the  Bible  for  the  exercise  of  our 
manhood.  "  Light  shining  in  a  dark  place "  need  not 
be  a  lantern  in  the  hand  for  searching  narrowly  every 
step  we  take  on  lines  of  radiation  which  point  us  to  the 
object  we  should  attain,  and  which  start  us  in  the  right 
direction.  We  have  not  one  ray  for  prelacy  in  the  New 
Testament,  either  to  begin  at  or  to  end  with.     Hitching 


RULING  ELDERS.  283 

its  line  back  upon  the  shadows  of  priesthood  and  upon 
three  orders  in  temple-service  of  old,  it  has  only  dark- 
ness and  silence  in  passing  by  our  Lord  and  his  dis- 
ciples where  they  went  to  church,  and  added  to  the 
church  daily  of  the  saved,  and  ordained  elders  in  every 
new  church  that  was  organized  by  their  ministry.  But 
the  constituents  of  Presbytery — teaching  and  ruling  in 
different  proportion,  making  distinction  of  classes  by  the 
force  of  circumstances,  beginning  at  the  exodus  from 
Egypt  by  divine  appointment,  and  never  ceasing  on 
the  luminous  track  of  sacred  history — met  the  recog- 
nition of  Christ  and  his  apostles  most  conspicuously 
at  "  the  fulness  of  time."  Receiving  new  direction  and 
final  instruction  from  inspired  apostles,  they  are  neces- 
sarily distinguished  again  for  all  time,  as  at  the  first, 
into  classes  for  the  work  of  the  ministry  and  the  gov- 
ernment of  the  Church. 

Warrant  for  the  Distinct  Office. 

1.  In  prescription,  time  is  warrant  of  title,  and  the 
legation  of  Moses,  in  which  ruling  elders  of  Israel  were 
made  a  distinct  order  of  diplomatic  agents  at  the  court 
of  Pharaoh  and  a  special  body  of  counsellors  to  assist 
the  great  prophet  through  all  the  perplexities  and  dis- 
couragements of  his  charge,  may  surely  be  considered 
antiquity  enough  to  establish  a  title — especially  so  when 
it  is  revealed  that  they  had  the  office  before  that  a])point- 
meut.  And  the  name  is  indefinitely  historical — so  much 
that  the  memory  of  man  "  runneth  not  to  the  contrary." 
Remote  as  the  patriarchal  form,  the  first  one  visible, 
and  widely  as  terms  of  respect  for  constituted  authority 
and  conventional  dignity  among  men,  can  be  traced  in 
the  language  of  any  people,  we  find  the  notions  of  elder 


284  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  ruler,  elder  and  teacher,  elder  and  representative, 
combined  with,  and  yet  distinguished  from,  each  other. 

When  we  come  to  the  advent  of  our  Lord,  we  find 
the  prescription  of  elders  in  office  universally  respected, 
and  these  familiarly  known  as  rulers,  chiefly  judicial, 
and  that  in  the  synagogue.  Other  offices  originated 
then  for  the  teaching  of  all  nations,  beginning  at  Jeru- 
salem. A  precursor  in  the  desert  preaching  repentance, 
threescore  and  ten  evangelists  throughout  Judea  to  her- 
ald the  coming  of  Jesus  in  person,  a  ministry  of  gifts 
when  the  Spirit  of  power  descended  to  speak  with 
tongues  and  to  prophesy,  and,  above  all,  the  twelve  apos- 
tles, witnesses  and  preachers  everywhere  they  could  go, 
from  Jerusalem  to  Babylon  and  from  Babylon  to  Rome, 
— the  origin,  occasion  and  calling  of  all  these  ministers 
of  the  word  are  signalized  in  sacred  history,  and  for  the 
most  part  minutely  recorded  ;  but  not  a  word  is  written 
about  the  origin  of  elders,  so  expressly  mentioned  of 
old,  and  the  office  came  to  be  noticed  now  only  when 
called  for  the  organization  of  churches  anew.  Two 
things  are  obviously  indicated  by  this  omission — the 
familiar  descent  of  these  from  indefinite  antiquity  need- 
ing no  notice  of  origin  again,  and  their  time-honored 
exercise,  at  and  after  the  advent,  in  directing  "govern- 
ments" and  "discerning  of  spirits."  As  representatives 
of  the  people  when  extraordinary  preachers  withdrew 
from  the  Church,  the  elders  in  her  "ministry  of  orders" 
received  the  behest  of  the  great  commission  to  teach, 
baptize  and  disciple  men   throughout  all  the  world. 

2.  The  plurality  of  elders  ordained  in  every  church 
(Acts  xiv.  23)  evinces  a  variety  in  functions  of  this 
office  and  its  exercise  enough  to  divide  the  number  and 
make  a  classific  distinction  among  them,  else  the  mis- 


RULING  ELDERS.  285 

sionary  spirit  of  that  age  would  condemn  tlie  organism 
for  superfluity  and  waste  of  provision.  Many  of  the 
earliest  Christian  churches  were  very  small  at  the  be^in- 
ning — even  fewer  in  membership  than  was  the  old  syna- 
gogue minimum  of  ten  persons,  including  this  plurality 
of  elders.  We  read  among  the  postapostolic  Fathers 
the  figures  17,  12  or  8  in  the  organization  at  first;  and 
if  all  the  elders  ordained  are  to  be  considered  as  one 
class  only  of  authorized  teachers,  can  it  be  credible  that 
two  or  more  ministers  of  the  gospel  were  assigned  to  the 
care  of  seventeen  souls,  when  the  harvest  was  so  o-reat 
and  the  laborers  few,  millions  perishing  in  pagan  dark- 
ness and  the  ministry  called  to  be  expansive  as  the  light 
of  day?  "But  I  say  have  they  not  heard?  Yes, 
verily,  their  sound  went  into  all  the  earth,  and  their 
words  to  the  end  of  the  world."  If  a  churcli  in  our 
day,  ten  times  the  number,  should  engross  a  plurality 
of  preachers  for  their  own  exclusive  use,  what  would  be 
thought  of  their  missionary  spirit  in  such  a  selfish  con- 
centration of  available  force?  The  New-Testament 
eldership  can  be  plural  consistently  in  each  particular 
church  only  upon  the  hypothesis  of  a  synagogue  bench 
continued  of  local  officers  ordained  as  ruling  elders  in 
the  exercise  of  a  spiritual  oversight. 

3.  Ruling  officially  is  more  than  one  side  of  the  ge- 
neric elder  in  Scripture.  It  is  made  a  whole  character, 
of  distinct  office,  in  that  profusion  of  distinctions  with 
which  the  Christian  era  began  its  ordinations.  Super- 
natural and  transient  as  many  of  them  were,  they  all 
converged  in  one  great  principle  of  organization — that 
a  gift  from  God  in  the  endowment  by  his  Spirit  is  the 
foundation  of  office  in  the  Church  and  qualifying  fitness 
to  exercise  it.     When  the  gift  is  withdrawn,  the  office 


286  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

will  cease,  in  fair  exegesis  of  the  warj'ant.  When  the 
gift  abides,  the  office  it  creates  may  be  discriminated 
easily  as  permanent,  and  nothing  is  more  apparent  in 
observation  than  the  perpetnity  of  "  ruling  well "  in  the 
Church  through  all  her  generations  which  are  not  of  the 
apostasy.  Take  up  the  catalogues  of  primitive  bestow- 
ment  which  have  mingled  the  transient  and  the  per- 
manent together — such  as  Rom.  xii.  6-8  and  1  Cor.  xii. 
28 — and  subtract  the  detail  of  gifts  confessedly  mar- 
vellous and  transient ;  the  remainder  contains,  "  he  that 
ruleth  with  diligence"  in  the  former,  and  "govern- 
ments "  in  the  latter  passage,  indicating  alike  the  charac- 
ter of  a  distinct  office  in  the  Church  for  all  time.  The 
first  enumeration  begins  with  the  preamble,  "  Having 
then  gifts  differing  according  to  the  grace  that  is  given 
to  us;"  the  second  begins  with  the  familiar  words  of 
divine  institution,  "  God  hath  set  some  in  the  church, 
first;"  etc.,  the  recital  making  "governments"  a  charac- 
ter of  office  quite  as  distinctly  as  "  teachers  "  or  "  apos- 
tles" themselves.  Distinction  is  made  of  these  charac- 
ters one  from  another  sharply  as  language  can  make 
it  by  adversative  particles,  ordinal  enumeration  and 
challenging  interrogatories  in  recapitulation:  "Are  all 
apostles  ?  are  all  prophets  ?  are  all  teachers  ?"  etc. ;  and, 
though  it  is  not  said,  "  are  all  governments  ?"  the  reason 
is  that  governments,  to  some  extent,  are  included  in  all 
teaching  offices,  while  teaching  is  not  included  to  the 
same  extent  in  governments. 

While  we  notice  the  transient  character  of  many 
primitive  offices  when  "  workers  of  miracles "  were  in 
the  field,  we  must  not  conclude  that  no  trace  of  these 
remained  upon  the  Church  after  the  gifts  on  which  they 
were  founded  were  withdrawn.     Each  office  in  the  min- 


BULTNG  ELDERS.  287 

istry  of  orders  inherited  enrichment  with  principles  of 
which  they  were  indicative,  and  the  permanent  realized 
as  legacy  much  importance  from  the  typical  use  of  the 
miraculous  in  the  effusion  of  Pentecost.  For  example, 
the  office  of  teaching  elder  groups  in  its  province  "  diver- 
sities of  tongues,"  "  helps,"  interpretation  of  prophecy, 
and  all  the  varieties  of  utterance  imported  in  "  prophe- 
sying ;"  and  the  longer  it  continues  in  the  world,  the 
more  conspicuous  become  these  proper  accomplishments 
of  the  preacher.  The  ruling  elder  also  inherits  from 
that  primitive  profusion  "  governments  "  in  the  original 
sense  of  skilful  direction,  "discerning  of  spirits"  in  the 
wise  discrimination  of  false  teachers  who  would  impose 
upon  the  flock  over  which  they  are  made  overseers;  and 
the  deacon  shares  in  such  inheritance  "gifits  of  healings," 
"giving  with  simplicity,"  "shewing  mercy  with  cheer- 
fulness." 

These  groups  of  typical  realization  add  immensely  to 
the  import  of  our  permanent  offices  in  the  Church,  and 
in  proportion  to  the  increase  of  importance  must  be  also 
the  conspicuity  of  our  threefold  distinction  among  them. 
The  cincture  of  assimilated  functions  on  each  standing 
column  of  our  temple  not  only  increases  the  beauty  of 
adornment  and  the  proportion  of  weight  respectively, 
but  challenges  comparison  also,  and  signalizes  diiference 
of  entablature  and  wreathing  which  will  make  intelli- 
gent observers  appreciate  distinction  as  well  as  consistent 
utility  in  the  structure. 

4.  Distinction  between  the  teaching  and  the  ruling  elder 
is  expressed  in  1  Tim.  v.  17  :  "Let  the  elders  that  rule 
well  be  counted  worthy  of  double  honor,  especially  they 
who  labor  in  the  word  and  doctrine."  That  profound 
theologian  and  learned  exegete  of  the  seventeenth  cen- 


288  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tury  Dr.  John  Owen,  though  not  a  Presbyterian,  thus 
expresses  his  interpretation  of  our  proof-texts  :  "  Elders 
not  called  to  teach  ordinarily,  or  administer  the  sacra- 
ments, but  to  assist  and  help  in  the  rule  and  government 
of  the  Church,  are  mentioned  in  the  Scripture,  Rom.  xii. 
8;  1  Cor.  xii.  28;  1  Tim.  v.  17."*  Dr.  Whitaker,  of 
the  same  century,  regius  professor  of  divinity  at  Cam- 
bridge, said,  "  If  all  that  rule  well  be  worthy  of  double 
honor,  especially  they  that  labor  in  the  word  and  doc- 
trine, it  is  plain  there  be  some  who  did  not  so  labor,  for 
if  all  had  been  of  this  description  the  meaning  would 
have  been  absurd  ;  but  the  word  '  especially '  points  out 
a  difference.  If  I  should  say  that  all  who  study  well  at 
the  university  are  worthy  of  double  honor,  especially 
they  that  labor  at  the  study  of  theology,  I  mean  that 
all  do  not  apply  themselves  to  the  study  of  theology, 
or  I  speak  nonsense.  Wherefore  I  confess  that  to  be 
the  most  genuine  sense  according  to  which  pastors  and 
teachers  are  distinguished  from  those  who  only  gov- 
erned." With  him.  Archbishop  Usslier,  Dr.  Lightfoot, 
Dr.  Whitby,  Archbishop  Potter,  Bishop  Burnet,  Dr. 
Dodwell,  and  others  too  numerous  to  be  mentioned, 
agreed  on  the  side  of  prelacy ;  and  on  the  other  side — 
the  Independent  and  Congregational — Drs.  Doddridge 
and  D wight,  and  Dr.  Ladd  of  this  generation,  and  many 
others,  agree  with  Dr.  Owen  substantially  as  above 
cited;  to  which  might  be  added  pungent  expressions 
of  Dr.  Owen  elsewhere  on  the  attempted  evasions  of 
this  main  scriptural  proof. 

When  a  passage  is  faithfully  rendered  as  this  one  is, 
the  interpretation   of  common   sense   is    best;   and    we 
affirm  that   no  unprejudiced    reader  would   hesitate   to 
*  Owen's  Works,  vol.  xix.  p.  535. 


RULING   ELDERS.  289 

sav  that  here  are  indicated  two  classes  of  ehlers  in  the 
Christian  Church — one  ordained  to  rule,  and  the  other 
to  rule  and  to  teach.  If  all  elders  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  alike  in  being  preachers,  and  must,  of  course, 
be  rulers  also  in  the  Church,  how  could  there  be  con- 
sistency in  giving  double  honor  for  half  duty,  and  still 
more  abundant  honor  for  the  other  half  of  duty — 
double  honor  to  this  side,  and  especially  to  the  ot^ier 
side,  of  the  same  office  ?  Surely  this  looks  like  frivolity 
of  exegesis.  As  it  is  hard  to  poll  the  verdict  of  common 
sense,  however,  let  us  count  a  few  plausibilities  of  the 
opposite  opinion.  Dr.  Wardlaw,  in  his  keen  review  of 
Dr.  King  on  the  office  of  ruling  elder,  lays  down  the 
premises  on  which  we  are  willing  to  risk  the  argument 
on  this  notable  text.  "  According  to  what  may  be 
called  invariable  usage,"  says  he,  "  it  must  be  under- 
stood as  representing  those  who  are  described  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  verse  as  comprehended  in  the  more 
general  description  of  the  former — not  as  a  distinct  class 
of  persons,  but  a  select  portion  of  the  same  class,  distin- 
guished by  a  specified  particularity."  Precisely  so,  ex- 
cepting the  gratuitous  negative  expressed  by  Dr.  Ward- 
law.  All  the  elders  mentione<l  in  the  verse  are  indeed 
the  general  class,  and  do  comprehend  those  who  '^  labor 
in  the  word  and  doctrine"  as  a  "specified  particularity." 
All  elders  were  at  first  ordained  as  rulers,  and  the  speci- 
fied particularity  which  supervened  upon  them  by  apos- 
tolical direction  to  minister  as  teachers  also  in  word  and 
in  doctrine  necessarily  distino:uished  and  with  diverse 
culture  more  and  more  into  another  class  of  elders  those 
who  were  best  qualified  and  deputed  by  their  brethren, 
with  suffrage  of  the  people.  We  need  not  dispute  about 
a  word — "  class  " — when  historical  facts  make  a  distinc- 

19 


290  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tion  and  the  passage  bears  upon  its  face  the  nature  of 
this  difference. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice  in  this  connection  that  Congre- 
gational churchmen  of  New  England,  in  departing  from 
the  Cambridge  platform,  which  recognized  the  ruling 
elder  as  a  distinct  office,  have  glossed  our  Authorized 
Version  of  the  text  (1  Tim.  v.  17)  in  this  way : 
"Especially,  they  laboring  in  word  and  doctrine  ;  or  in 
this  way  :  Especially  as  they  labor  in  loord  and  doctrine  ; 
which  gives  essentially  a  new  turn  to  the  passage."* 
Of  course  Dr.  Wardlaw's  "select  portion  of  the  same 
class  "  may  be  dispensed  with  on  this  variety  of  interpre- 
tation, for  the  intensive  adverb  "especially"  is  thus  ap- 
plied to  ail  the  elders  indicated  in  the  text.  Such  a 
version  also  dispenses  with  the  demonstrative  force  of 
the  pronoun  "  they  "  (of),  whicli  the  recent  Revision  of 
the  New  Testament  restores  and  increases  properly  by 
substituting  "  those  "  for  "  they."  It  also  reduces  the 
original  adverb  [fidXcaza,  "especially")  from  the  super- 
lative to  the  positive  degree,  meaning  "  much  "  instead 
of  "more"  or  "most."  In  these  two  degrees  it  is  in- 
variably distinctive  as  well  as  intensive  in  the  Holy 
Scriptures;  and,  as  this  one  word  is  so  often  alleged  to 
be  the  pivotal  point  for  a  warrant  to  the  ruling  elder's 
office,  we  should,  to  justify  our  Westminster  position, 
patiently  collate  all  the  passages  in  which  it  is  used. 

The  first  three  instances  in  the  acts  of  Paul  (Acts  xx. 
38 ;  XXV.  26 ;  xxvi.  3)  may  be  grouped  togetlier  as  the 
slightest  of  all  in  making  distinction,  and  yet  it  appears 
to  any  attention  of  reading :  "  Sorrowing  most  of  all 
(/uUcaza)  for  the  words  which  he  spake,  that  they  should 
see  his  face  no  more."  Here  the  utterance  of  a  final  de- 
*  Prof.  Thomas  C.  Upham. 


RULING  ELDERS.  291 

parture  is  a  distinct  as  well  as  chief  cause  of  their  sorrow. 
"  Specially  {fxdXcara)  before  thee,  O  King  Agrippa,"  dis- 
tinguishes Agrippa  from  "Festus,  the  chief  captains  and 
principal  men  of  the  city."  And  it  expresses  distinction 
again  when  he  compliments  Agrippa  for  being  best  quali- 
fied to  judge :  "Expert  in  all  customs  and  questions  which 
are  among  the  Jews."  Gal.  vi.  10:  "Let  us  do  good  unto 
all  men,  especially  unto  them  who  are  of  the  household  of 
faith ;"  Phil.  iv.  22 :  "All  the  saints  salute  you,  chiefly 
[fidXcara)  they  that  are  of  Caesar's  household  ;"  1  Tim. 
iv.  10 :  "  Who  is  the  Saviour  of  all  men,  speGially  of 
those  that  believe ;"  1  Tim.  v.  8  :  "  But  if  any  provide 
not  for  his  own,  and  specially  for  those  of  his  own  house, 
he  hath  denied  the  faith,  and  is  worse  than  an  infidel ;" 
2  Tim.  iv.  13:  "And  the  books,  but  especially  the  parch- 
ments ;"  Tit.  i.  10  :  "  For  there  are  many  unruly  and 
vain  talkers  and  deceivers,  specially  they  of  the  circum- 
cision;"  Philem.  16:  "A  brother  beloved,  specially  to 
me," — thus  far  Paul ;  aud  now  one  citation  more,  2  Pet. 
ii.  10  :  "  But  chiefly  {fidhara)  them  that  walk  after  the 
flesh  in  the  lust  of  uncleanness,  and  despise  govern- 
ment." Here  the  apostle  evidently  distinguishes  the 
debauched  from  the  unjust  in  the  certainty  of  punish- 
ment awaiting  "the  unjust"  in  the  day  of  judgment. 
Such  is  the  exhaustive  collation  of  uses  for  this  term. 
And  not  once  is  it  used  intensively  without  suggesting 
distinction  of  some  sort.  Even  without  the  adversative 
particle  (oe)  in  the  original,  it  signifies  distinction,  and 
this  always  a  more  special  category  than  the  premises 
first  affirmed  or  denied.  And  this  answers  precisely 
to  the  specialty  of  a  teaching  eldership  devolved  on 
the  common  bench  of  rulers  when  extraordinary  teach- 
ers, commissioned  without  ordination  and  inspired,  were 


292  CHURCH  GOVERNMEHiT. 

about  to  leave  the  miuistry  of  orders  fairly  adjusted  for 
all  time  to  follow. 

Other  theories  of  the  distinction,  admitting  it  to  be 
somehow  couched  in  this  crucial  text,  should  be  noticed 
briefly  in  our  deference  to  the  opinions  of  worthy  men. 
It  cannot  be  a  distinction  between  rulers  in  a  general 
sense  who  are  Christian  laymen,  and  ministers,  who,  as 
Christian  teachers,  must  exercise  ruling  in  the  Church 
only ;  for  the  context,  both  before  and  after,  confines  the 
application  of  both  phrases  to  church-officers  alone,  and 
the  elders  that  rule  well,  as  we  have  seen,  must  include 
in  its  generic  sense  the  teachers  who  are  also  elders 
honored  specially  for  their  labor  in  the  word.  Besides, 
the  word  Trposarcozsi;,  in  its  participial  form,  is  used  in 
1  Thess.  5.  12  for  officers  "  which  are  over  you  in  the 
Lord."  It  cannot  be  that  these  "  elders  who  rule  well " 
are  deacons,  for  such  are  uniformly  represented  as  serv- 
ants in  the  church.  Nor  can  it  be  that  they  are  the  aged 
and  worn-out  preachers  of  the  word,  for  then  the  double 
honor  should  be  "  especially  "  rendered  to  these,  and  not 
to  those  who  have  not  yet  made  full  proof  of  their  min- 
istry and  come  so  near  finishing  their  course  and  reach- 
ing their  crown.  Nor  can  it  be  that  they  are  the  local 
and  settled  ministers  of  a  particular  church,  while  those 
who  "  labor  in  the  word  and  doctrine  "  are  the  itinerant 
preachers  of  the  age  distinguished  for  more  abounding, 
exposed  and  self-consecrated  service,  for  travelling  preach- 
ers are  nowhere  in  Scripture  called  "  elders,"  and  seem  to 
have  all  passed  away  with  the  exit  of  apostles  and  the 
ministry  of  gifts.  And  such  a  gloss  would  spoil  the 
logic  of  this  text,  in  which  a  general  class  of  elders 
in  the  first  part  comprehends,  with  "  specialty "  pre- 
fixed, a  select  portion  of  itself  in  the  second  part  of  the 


RULING  ELDERS.  293 

sentence.  Besides,  botli  designations  are  applied  in  1 
Thess.  V.  12  to  the  ordinary  and  settled  officers  of  each 
church.  Nor  can  the  distinction  be  between  ordinary 
ministers  of  the  word  and  those  who  labor  with  extra- 
ordinary zeal  and  faithfulness,  for  that  would  require 
invidious  embarrassment  of  the  people  called  to  make 
the  discrimination,  and  would  occasion  partisan  strife 
and  animosity  among  them.  And  such  a  gloss  would 
spoil  the  rhetoric  of  the  text  with  a  fldse  antithesis. 
This  would  be  made  by  putting  an  adverb,  xaXwz,  in 
the  first  clause,  against  xo7iuo\^Tt<i,  a  participle,  in  the 
second,  whereas  the  true  antithesis  in  words  must  be 
made  by  putting  those  of  the  same  class  in  grammar 
against  each  other.  Besides,  this  one  word  xomcd^^zec:, 
"  who  labor,"  expresses  the  ordinary  toil  of  a  pastor  in 
the  particular  church  (1  Thess.  v.  12);  and  when  the 
apostle  would  express  abounding  and  extraordinary 
labor,  he  has  additional  words  for  the  diction— ;ro/l/id  or 
Tispiaaorepov  or  [JLoydoc.  (See  Rom.  xvi.  12 ;  2  Cor.  xi. 
27  ;  1  Thess.  ii.  9  ;  2  Thess.  iii.  8.) 

Another  objection  to  the  force  of  this  proof-text  for  a 
distinction  made  among  the  presbyter-bishops  of  the 
Bible  is  from  the  context:  "For  the  scripture  saith. 
Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth  out  the 
corn.  And  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire."  It  is 
alleged,  accordingly,  that  the  word   n/i^c,  in   the  text 

translated  "honor,"   means  "hire"  or  "wages" the 

stipend  given  to  ministers  of  the  word,  and  not  to 
ruling  elders.  But  we  may  answer  that  the  translation 
we  have  is  better  than  the  criticism,  being:  the  literal 
rendering  of  the  word,  and  according  to  the  ancient 
translations  as  Avell  as  to  the  recent  Revision,  and  also 
expressing   better  the   main  drift  of   the  context,  the 


294  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

principle  of  rewarding  faithful  service  in  office  with 
revenue  or  with  money,  or  with  both.  We  may  also 
observe  that  the  omission  of  salary  to  a  ruling  elder 
cannot  alter  the  warrant  of  his  office,  any  more  than  the 
Council  of  Carthage  in  398  altered  the  warrant  for  a 
standing  ministry  by  ordaining  that  all  preachers  should 
work  at  some  honest  trade,  and  yet  not  fail  of  their 
ecclesiastical  dues.  But  there  is  in  this  omission  of  pay 
to  ruling  elders  "a  peculiar  suggestion  honorable  to  this 
important  office — that  such  elders  are  made  more  exactly 
representatives  of  the  people  over  whom  they  exercise  a 
spiritual  oversight  in  being  practically  identified  with 
them  as  they  support  themselves  by  the  pursuits  of 
industrial  life,  so  as  to  know  them  more  intimately  and 
be  known  by  them  in  the  sympathies  of  fellow-feel- 
ing and  in  the  effective  influence  of  a  good  example  in 
the  practice  of  wisdom,  economy,  justice,  moderation 
and  charity.  Yet,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  ruling  elders 
of  our  system  are  not  without  the  honorarium  of  pe- 
cuniary recompense  to  some  extent,  when  their  expenses 
incurred  as  representatives  in  the  higher  judicatories  of 
the  Church  are  actually  paid  out  of  a  common  treasury 
by  a  standing  order  of  the  Church.  But  now,  again, 
the  objector  claims  too  much  for  himself  on  the  hy- 
pothesis of  homogeneous  eldership  in  making  all  New- 
Testament  elders  to  be  preachers.  On  that  supposition 
this  "  double "  or  abundant  sti])end  would  be  enjoined 
for  ruling  only — not  half  the  deserts  of  a  faithful  pas- 
tor.    Double  pay  for  half  work,  or  less  ! 

Another  interpretation  to  be  noticed  makes  the  dis- 
tinction acknowledged  in  the  passage  to  be  entirely 
among  teaching  elders  in  the  way  of  assigning  double 
honor  to  those  who  preside  well  over  assemblies  of  the 


RULING  ELDERS.  295 

Church  at  any  grade  in  original  or  appellate  jurisdiction, 
with  either  executive  or  judicial  ability — men  of  skill  in 
the  management  of  affairs,  temporal,  spiritual  or  dis- 
ciplinary, characterized  by  good  sense  and  firm  decision ; 
and,  on  the  other  side,  more  especially  when  the  same 
persons  unite  consecration  and  hard  labor  in  preaching 
the  gospel  with  such  ruling  tact  in  practical  influence 
over  men.  This  exegesis,  derived  from  the  commentary 
of  Dr.  James  MacKnight  on  the  Epistles — over  one 
hundred  years  old — is  too  much  of  private  interpreta- 
tion as  applied  by  him  to  the  presidency  of  churches  in 
the  perilous  times  of  church  fonnation  which  followed 
soon  after  the  departure  of  both  Paul  and  Timothy. 
Before  the  new  organizations  could  be  normally  settled 
the  presbyter-bishop  was  everything  both  of  rulintr  and 
of  teaching  for  a  time.  Like  our  home  missionaries 
on  the  frontier  settlements,  he  had  every  concern  in  his 
hands,  both  material  and  spiritual,  looking  for  houses  to 
be  hired  or  built  for  chapel  use,  and  for  men  Avho  would 
be  fit  for  elders  or  deacons  to  help  him  in  ministering, 
and,  withal,  exposed  to  persecutions  which  required  su- 
preme prudence  in  the  management  of  anv  Christian 
trust. 

But  such  were  exceptional  times,  and  such  were 
exceptional  Tipoeanoze:.  We  apprehend  the  apostle  in 
this  direction  designed  the  conditions  of  a  permanent 
and  normal  organization  for  all  time ;  and  if  so,  the 
presidency  implied  in  this  term  must  be  reduced  to  the 
simple  moderatorship  in  our  assemblies  of  elders,  Aviiich 
consists  only  in  collecting  and  announcing  the  M-ill  of 
the  meeting  over  which  an  elder  presides.  Yet  such  a 
sense  is  too  feeble  for  this  woi-d.  The  moderator  is  not 
a  ruler  in  any  proj)er  judicial  sense;  or  if  he  be,  and 


296  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  term  z«,^^t>c  ("  well ")  be  considered  as  inviting  the 
people  to  judge  who  it  is  that  rules  well  and  better  and 
best  among  the  elders  in  order  to  proportion  equitably 
his  reward  and  make  it  doubly  abundant,  while  others  get 
little  or  none,  the  injunction  in  the  text  becomes  invidi- 
ous, setting  the  people  over  the  elders  and  sowing  dis- 
cord, envy  and  mischievous  rivalry  as  tares  among  the 
wheat  sown  by  labor  in  word  and  in  doctrine.  Besides, 
it  would  devolve  an  impossible  discrimination  for  any 
])eople  to  exercise — balancing  merits  among  ministers  iu 
order  to  adjust  the  recompense  ariglit,  and  this  with  a 
refinement  of  appreciation  or  of  blame  which  few,  even 
ministers  of  the  word,  are  ev^er  competent  to  exercise. 
It  is  a  familiar  observation  to  this  day  that  many  of  the 
best  preachers,  and  the  most  admii-ed  and  sought  after 
by  the  people,  are  in  Presbytery  innocent  as  children, 
and  more  silent  in  their  seats,  feeling  and  confessing 
themselves  incompetent  for  the  business  of  ruling  or 
presiding  in  the  assemblies.  And,  still  more,  the  de- 
voted missionary,  at  home  or  abroad,  who  goes  far  hence 
to  "  labor  iu  word  and  doctrine "  without  as  yet  any 
particular  church  to  be  ruled  in  his  charge,  must  be 
excluded  from  the  "  especially,"  and,  indeed,  from  the 
"  double  honor  "  iu  the  first  clause  also,  because  he  has 
not  rule  and  eloquence  mixed  together  in  his  qualifica- 
tions, and  so  mingled  that  the  people  may  see  how  to 
separate  such  qualities  in  the  same  man  and  to  assign  his 
proper  share  iu  the  award. 

Embarrassments  like  these  must  attend  all  explana- 
tions of  this  text  which  reject  the  distinct  office  of  rul- 
ing elder  in  the  first  clause,  and  the  equally  distinct 
office  of  teaching  elder  in  the  second  clause,  which  does 
unite  both  ruling  and  public  teaching  in  the  same  man. 


RULING  ELDERS.  297 

We  cannot  reduce  the  injunction  upon  the  people  it 
contains  to  practical  application  without  forcing  upon 
them  impracticable  judgment  delicate  as  it  is  difficult 
and  maybe  mischievous  as  it  is  incompetent.  When 
they  choose  men  like  themselves  in  the  ordinary  engage- 
ments of  business  life  to  be  their  immediate  representa- 
tives on  the  elders'  bench,  there  is  a  common  ground  of 
sympathy  and  intuitive  appreciation  of  chara(!ter  which 
enable  them  to  discern  the  "  well  "-done  duty  of  those 
who  are  over  them  in  the  Lord  in  the  exercise  of  a 
delegated  authority ;  and  when  they  would  esteem  them 
highly  for  their  works'  sake,  such  esteem  is  awarded 
"  especially  "  to  the  elder  or  elders  over  them  who  combine 
a  righteous  regime,  with  the  sublime  commission  to  preach 
the  gospel  and  labor  among  them  in  word  and  in  doctrine. 
Vitringa,  whose  treatise  on  tlie  ancient  synagogue  as 
continued  in  form  by  the  Christian  church  is  the  most 
complete  and  exhaustive  to  be  found  in  any  language, 
differs  from  the  main  body  of  the  Reformed  in  the  in- 
terpretation of  this,  important  text,  alleging  that  all 
elders  were  made  teaching  elders  alike,  and  that  the 
distinction  made  here  is  only  between  teachers  who 
attended  to  ruling  chiefly  and  those  who,  besides  ruling, 
labored  in  word  and  doctrine  as  pastors  or  evangelists. 
In  the  first  and  more  general  class  he  would  compre- 
hend all  doctors,  professors,  tutors  and  schoolmasters 
ordained  to  the  ministry  of  the  gospel,  and  yet  turned 
aside  or  detained  in  the  miscellaneous  business  of  teach- 
ing or  anything  else  than  ''  laboring  in  the  word 
and  doctrine."  These  would  have  their  place  in  the 
Presbytery  or  eldership  of  any  grade,  and  should  be 
supported  well  as  they  ruled  well ;  and  such  support 
should  be  rendered  especially  to  those  who  gave  them- 


298  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

selves  wholly  to  the  duty  of  preaching  as  well  as  to  that 
of  ruling.  In  this  kind  of  gloss  Vitringa  has  had  a 
following  to  this  day,  and  yet  we  need  but  few  words  to 
show  that  it  is  untenable. 

(1)  His  elders  that  "  rule  well "  are  not  fairly  or 
more  immediately  "  representatives  of  the  people,"  as 
compared  even  with  preaching  elders  at  home  or  abroad. 

(2)  He  was  misled  by  a  name  which  he  himself  gave 
the  elders,  whom  we  call  representatives  of  the  people. 
He  begins  and  continues  throughout  his  argument  to 
call  them  laymen — "  lay-elders,"  a  title  ignored  by  the 
Westminster  Assembly  and  by  every  other  intelligent 
writer  who  has  carefully  studied  the  subject. 

(3)  He  overlooked  entirely  the  broad  interpretation 
of  the  phrase  "apt  to  teach,"  confining  it  to  the  ordained 
preachers  of  the  word,  whilst  both  in  the  original  and 
in  the  Version  it  may  be  generalized  more  than  eveu 
the  word  "  elder  "  itself,  and  applied  either  to  public  or 
to  private  teaching,  either  by  laymen  or  by  clergymen, 
and  taken  in  either  an  active  or  a  passive  sense. 

(4)  The  glomeratiou  of  teachers  he  puts  in  the  first 
and  more  general  class  of  elders  had  no  existence  when 
the  apostle  wrote  the  words  of  that  text  for  Timothy. 
It  is  a  singular  slide  for  such  an  author  as  Vitringa  to 
descend  for  Cyprianic  literature  in  the  third  century  to 
illustrate  facts  on  record  in  the  first  century,  ransacking 
the  schools  of  Carthage,  Alexandria,  etc.  to  find  preach- 
ing elders  without  charge  to  make  up  the  portion  which 
"  ruled  well "  as  teachers  only  in  the  apostolic  time. 

(5)  The  practical  travesty  of  elderships  at  the  present 
day,  in  regard  to  "  ruling  well "  or  ruling  at  all,  which 
his  theory  would  produce,  were  worse  than  his  anach- 
ronism.     If   we   should    inquire  diligently  how  many 


RULING  ELDERS.  299 

"  H.  R.'s"  and  "  W.  C's"  and  heads  of  grammar  schools 
and  professors  in  colleges  and  seminaries,  being  all  cler- 
gymen, "  rule  well  "  without  preaching  the  "  word  and 
doctrine"  laboriouslv,  we  could  soon  discover  the  mis- 
take  of  a  learned  Vitringa  in  these  premises.  It  is  said 
there  are  clerical  professors  in  our  colleges,  and  even  in 
our  theological  seminaries,  who  are  hardly  ever  seen  at 
Presbytery  at  all. 

We  have  dwelt  longer  on  this  proof- text  than  the 
others  because  it  has  been  challenged  so  ably  and  plausi- 
bly by  Presbyterian  scholars,  ^vho  accept  the  ruling 
elder's  office  under  the  color,  at  least,  of  warrant  from 
Scripture,  and  hold  it  fast  for  its  expediency  while  un- 
Avilling  to  generalize  the  word  "elder"  so  as  to  recog- 
nize two  classes  for  the  name.  "We  cannot  believe  that 
either  age  or  youth  in  criticism,  with  the  most  advanced 
erudition  of  our  day,  can  do  better  with  it  than  did 
George  Gillespie  at  the  Westminster  Assembly  of  Di- 
vines, and  we  must  conclude  with  Dr.  Owen,  vice-chan- 
cellor of  Oxford,  when  giants  were  there  :  "  On  the  first 
proposal  of  this  text,  a  rational  man  who  is  unprejudiced, 
who  never  heard  of  a  controversy  about  ruling  elders, 
could  hardly  avoid  the  apprehension  that  here  are  two 
sorts  of  elders — some  who  labor  in  the  word  and  doc- 
trine, and  some  who  do  not  so  labor.  The  truth  is  it 
was  interest  and  prejudice  that  first  caused  some  learned 
men  to  strain  their  wits  to  find  out  evasion  from  the 
evidence  of  this  testimony.  Being  so  found  out,  some 
of  minor  abilities  have  been  entangled  by  them." 

Expediency  of  the  Elder's  Office. 
Although  a  warranted   expediency  is  the  only  kind 
that  is  truly  ecclesiastical,  and  the  fitness  or  the  useful- 


300  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ness  of  anything  ordered  in  the  Church  must  have  some 
antecedent  color  of  divine  intimation,  yet  the  measures 
of  sound  reason  for  its  institution  are  quite  reciprocal  in 
showing  the  validity  of  proof  by  interpretation  alone. 
Indeed,  the  origin  of  ecclesia  itself,  as  we  have  already 
seen,  was  largely  due,  in  its  institution,  changes  and 
ultimate  establishment,  to  the  circumstances  of  necessity 
in  which  the  pro.vidence  of  God,  as  well  as  his  word, 
had  placed  the  chosen  people  of  old.  While  the  temple- 
service  was  all  of  positive  command,  and  the  slightest 
will-worship  was  utterly  profane  and  prohibited,  the 
service  at  the  synagogue  was  rationally  free,  to  be  justi- 
fied, stimulated  and  modified  by  the  dictates  of  reason 
and  common  sense,  though,  of  course,  ever  loyal  and 
obedient  to  that  divine  authority,  which  had  fixed  its 
main  features  of  polity  and  prescribed  its  exercises  of 
prayer  and  instruction.  A  beautiful  illustration  of 
blended  revelation  and  expediency  we  find  in  Num.  xi. 
16, 17,  that  original  organizing  text  already  cited:  "And 
the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  Gather  unto  me  seventy  men 
of  the  elders  of  Israel,  .  .  .  and  they  shall  bear  the 
burden  of  the  people  with  thee,  that  thou  bear  it  not 
alone."  Here  is  a  glimpse  of  everlasting  expediency. 
The  Lord  said  it,  and  helpful  elders  were  the  need  of 
that  occasion,  according  to  the  common  sense  of  Jethro, 
prince  and  priest  of  Midian.  And  these  were  not  of 
the  tribe  of  Levi  distinctly,  but  of  all  Israel,  and,  with 
the  spirit  of  Moses  upon  them,  they  made  his  adminis- 
tration complete.  Centuries  of  observation  prove  the 
wisdom  of  tiiis  expedient. 

1.  Teaching  ciders  need  this  office  to  aid  them  in 
government  and  discipline.  One  man  is  not  able  to 
guide  the  manifold  interests  of  a  flock  through  all  the 


RULING  ELDERS.  301 

circumstances  which  environ  and  temptations  that  beset 
them  without  the  practical  wisdom  and  safety  afforded 
only  in  a  plural  number  of  counsellors,  and  these  famil- 
iarly conversant  with  the  people  represented.  To  com- 
fort the  sick  and  counsel  the  wayward  and  reclaim  the 
wandering  and  instruct  the  youth  in  families  and  schools 
and  Bible  classes ;  to  enforce  the  admonitions  and  cen- 
sures of  the  church,  so  that  these  shall  be  faithfully  ad- 
ministered and  wisely  adapted  to  every  particular  case 
of  infirmity  and  fault, — are  in  part  the  value  of  a  ruling 
eldership;  and  these  require  more  than  the  wisdom  of 
one  man,  however  gifted,  energetic,  experienced  and  de- 
voted to  his  duties  he  may  be.  But  when  we  consider 
that  the  teaching  elder  is  often  infirm  in  health  or  in- 
experienced in  youth  or  abstracted  in  study  or  headlong 
in  temper  and  will,  how  much  more  needed  is  the  bench 
of  seniors  who  are  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  peo- 
ple and  the  treatment  with  which  their  minds  must  be 
managed  and  their  consciences  guided  ! 

Even  if  the  one  teaching  elder  could  perform  well  the 
multifarious  duties,  he  ought  not  to  be  trusted  with  all 
of  them :  the  best  of  men  may  be  warped  or  perverted 
by  the  monopoly  of  power  in  their  hands.  Accumula- 
tion bends  them.  Pride,  partiality,  caprice  and  obsti- 
nacy ensue  more  or  less  upon  the  pile  of  responsibilities 
without  distribution,  whether  they  be  civil  or  sacred, 
however  pure  the  agent  and  well  contrived  the  original 
institution.  More  churches  have  been  ruined  by  the 
one-man  power,  even  in  the  pastor,  than  by  all  the  un- 
wisdom of  Sessions  and  feuds  of  the  people  that  can  be 
counted  in  the  annals  of  Presbyterianism,  either  at  home 
or  abroad.  Spiritual  despotism  began  with  the  subver- 
sion of  this  primitive  office  and  the  discontinuance  of 


302  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ruliug  elders.     "The  elders   have  saved  the  Church" 
has  often  been  said  in  modern  times. 

2.  The  people  need  the  office  even  more  than  their 
bishop  does,  not  only  for  the  reason  stated  above — that 
he  must  be  assisted  for  their  benefit  and  restrained  for 
their  safety — but  also  because  the  ruling  elder  exempli- 
fies more  completely  the  principle  of  representation 
which  is  the  heart  of  all  good  government  and  the 
security  of  all  freedom.  At  this  point  of  view  the 
office  appears  to  be  more  indispensable  than  that  of  the 
bishop  himself  at  the  first  organization  and  in  every  suc- 
ceeding crisis  of  a  vacancy  or  change.  A  Presbyterian 
church  may  exist  without  a  pastor,  but  not  without  a 
ruling  elder,  unless  it  be  an  interval  of  seeking  for  one 
or  more  to  fill  the  office ;  which  waiting  must  be  short., 
or  dissolution  ensues.  At  the  beginning  of  the  Scottish 
Reformation  elders  manned  the  organization  of  churches 
before  the  preachers  could  be  had,  and  often  nursed  them 
long  before  pastors  were  procured.  So  it  was  in  America 
at  the  planting  of  our  churches,  and  is  still  to  be  observed 
largely  in  Maste  places  and  in  new  fields  of  settlement. 
The  vitality  of  this  office,  both  before  and  after  a  teach- 
ing elder  is  set  over  them  as  bishop  or  pastor,  comes 
from  the  sympathy  and  confidence  of  the  people,  who 
are'always  best  represented  by  some  of  themselves  that 
seem  to  be  qualified  with  suitable  gifts  and  graces  which 
they  recognize  but  cannot  impart  from  themselves  either 
in  creating  the  office  or  in  controlling  it  by  virtue  of 
their  sufiVnge.  Instincts  of  the  purest  democracy  are 
fain  to  lodge  their  interests  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
are  esteemed  better  than  themselves  in  capability  of 
mind  and  enlightenment  of  conscience,  making  repre- 
sentation  at   once    their   agency   and    master.      Repre- 


RULING  ELDERS.  303 

sentatives,  and    not   delegates  merely,  are  those  whom 
they  elect  to  govern  themselves. 

3.  In  other  branches  of  the  visible  Church  where 
this  office  is  not  recognized  or  has  been  discarded  after 
trial  the  functions  of  it  are  always  reproduced  under 
diffei-ent  designations,  scarcely  one  of  which  is  a  script- 
ural name  for  distinct  office.  Prelacy  is  constrained  to 
mitigate  and  to  sustain  its  rule  by  the  help  of  laymen 
called  "vestrymen,"  "wardens"  and  "delegates,"  all 
deriving  their  authority  from  the  people  to  manage 
temporal  interests  only  or  chiefly,  the  spiritual  oversight 
being  studiously  confined  to  the  episcopate  or  clergy,  and 
that  in  an  upper  house  of  convocation  where  no  layman 
can  sit,  nor  even  a  presbyter,  who  must  be  enrolled  in  a 
lower  house  of  convention,  where  the  people  are  repre- 
sented by  laymen  as  well.  This  unofficial  representa- 
tion, however,  in  deliberating  on  affairs  of  the  Church, 
is  peculiarly  American,  condemned  at  the  old  English 
home — "  a  manifest  usurpation,"  says  the  British  Critic, 
"  which  must  be  overthrown."  All  officers  in  the  Church 
that  are  distinct  from  clerical  orders  and  designed  to  do 
what  our  elders  do  in  sacred  things  are  late  and  crude  in 
systems  of  prelacy.  Even  vestrymen  are  called  such 
after  the  robing-room  of  clergymen,  and  are  so  ill- 
defined  in  the  sphere  of  duty  that  here  and  there 
even  diocesan  bisiiops  complain  of  their  aggression 
upon  matters  which  are  distinctly  spiritual  and  epis- 
copal. The  truly  ancient  ecclesia  seems  to  have  had 
no  confusion  of  offices  in  the  denomination  of  elder;  and 
if  the  scriptural  generalization  of  this  word  had  been 
retained,  the  distinction  of  species  it  includes  would  have 
distributed  the  functions  of  the  office  fairly  enough  to 
perpetuate  harmony  through  all  interaction. 


304  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

The  Wesleyan  Church,  with  its  modified  episcopacy, 
has  a  "presiding  elder"  under  bishops  in  rank,  and  he 
is  a  teaching  elder  as  well  as  ruling,  with  a  superintend- 
ence of  discipline  over  a  given  district  in  his  hands,  tak- 
ing the  place  of  both  ruling  and  teaching  elders  in  this 
administration.  But  his  exercise  of  judicial  authority 
lacks,  of  course,  the  plurality  of  associate  judges  on 
the  bench  required  alike  by  Scripture  and  by  reason 
to  constitute  a  safe  tribunal  of  justice.  "Tell  it  to  the 
church,"  said  our  Lord.  A  single  elder  is  not  the 
church,  of  course,  and,  rationally,  one  man  is  not  enough 
to  satisfy  all  men  with  adjudications.  The  synagogue 
"three"  is  better  than  one  elder  in  consultation.  A 
plurality  chosen  by  the  people  from  among  themselves 
like  a  jury  of  their  peers  will  undoubtedly  put  an  end 
to  strife  and  preclude  the  murmur  of  dissatisfaction  at 
any  result  better  than  decision  by  one  individual,  how- 
ever Mdse  and  good  he  may  be,  especially  when  he  is 
appointed  over  the  people  rather  than  chosen  by  them- 
selves. A  more  interesting  and  valuable  feature  of 
Methodist  polity  is  the  class-leader — a  selected  instructor 
and  guide  of  a  few  fellow-members  who  meet  statedly  for 
conference,  mutual  counsel  and  prayer.  But  this  feature 
also  is  blended  with  the  functions  of  a  ruling  eldership. 
Familiar  teaching  and  leading  at  prayer-meetings,  Bible- 
class  meetings,  family  visitation,  the  examination  of 
candidates  for  admission  to  full  communion,  and  the 
dealing  with  members  under  censures  of  the  church, 
make  a  wider  field  of  usefulness  than  any  class-leader 
occupies,  and  bring  into  exercise  all  the  sense  of  spiritual 
wisdom  and  the  charity  of  sanctified  affections  in  build- 
ing up  the  Church  at  every  corner  and  in  diffusing  the 
savor  of  Christ  on  everv  walk  of  life. 


RULING  ELDERS.  305 

Congregatioualism  has  its  present  substitute  for  the 
ruling  elders'  bench  in  "committee-men/'  including 
deacons  also,  a  few  individuals  of  superior  wisdom  and 
experience,  and  popularity  also,  being  chosen  by  the 
people  from  time  to  time  to  aid  the  pastor  in  his  in- 
s}>ection  of  the  flock  and  to  help  to  maintain  fraternity 
with  neighboring  churches  and  to  execute  the  discipline 
which  the  congregation  are  summoned  to  consider  and 
transact.  And  yet  the  substitution  is  regretted  by  the 
ablest  independent  writers,  who,  from  John  Owen  to 
Professor  George  T.  Ladd,  have  advocated  the  restora- 
tion and  the  continuance  of  the  elder's  office  in  ruling". 
The  better  days  of  New  England  Independency  had 
this  office.  Nearly  all  the  leading  churches  were  pro- 
vided with  such  representatives,  and  some  of  their 
noblest  men  have  sighed  for  its  restoration.  "  There  are 
few  discreet  pastors,"  said  Cotton  Mather,  "  but  what 
make  many  occasional  ruling  elders  every  year."  Jon- 
athan Edwards,  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Erskine  of  Scotland, 
said,  in  reference  mainly  to  the  utility  of  this  eldership, 
"  I  have  long  been  out  of  conceit  of  our  unsettled,  inde- 
pendent, confused  way  of  church  government,  and  the 
Presbyterian  way  has  ever  apjieared  to  me  most  agree- 
able to  the  word  of  God  and  the  reason  and  nature  of 
things." 

Other  systems  might  be  surveyed  with  similar  com- 
parison and  like  conclusion.  Many  a  function  of  office 
in  well -compacted  church  politics  we  may  witness  under 
another  name.  But  this  venerable  name  of  "elder"  is 
the  best  denomination,  however  civilian  it  mav  have 
been  during  Hebrew  theocracy,  and  however  much  it 
may  seem  tangled  with  the  preacher's  function  when  the 
legacy  of  teaching  by  Levitc,  prophet  and  apostle  vested 

20 


G 


306  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

at  last  in  the  presbyter  for  all  remaining  time.  The 
affinities  of  teaching  and  ruling  are  too  close  to  be 
sundered  for  edification,  and  yet  not  too  close  to  be 
distinguished  both  in  theoretical  idea  and  in  practical 
ministration.  The  expediency,  therefore,  of  holding  on 
to  the  prescriptive  right  of  this  designation  for  all  in- 
termediate powers  between  the  bishop  and  the  people 
must  be  manifest.  The  name  of  "  lay-elder,"  against 
which  Gillespie  and  Henderson  protested  two  hundred 
and  forty  years  ago,  and  Dr.  Samuel  Miller  in  a  late 
generation,  should  be  discarded  entirely,  for  the  interval 
between  the  teaching  and  the  ruling  elder  is  far  less 
than  that  between  the  latter  and  the  unofficial  members 
among  the  people. 

Whatever  be  the  diversity  of  exegesis  among  Pres- 
byterians about  the  proof-texts  quoted  for  a  scriptural 
warrant,  all  agree  that  the  office  itself  is  expedient,  and 
this  argument  alone  is  of  great  force  with  even  a  color 
of  divine  sanction.  Discipline  is  indispensable  to  the 
welfare  of  any  church  and  is  fearfully  enjoined  by 
Revelation,  but  it  cannot  be  dispensed  wisely  and  well 
or  fully  and  fairly  exercised  without  some  consistory  of 
a  judicial  nature  between  the  law  and  the  offender  to 
"make  the  right  application.  Representatives  of  the 
people  must  do  this  for  them.  Being,  therefore,  a 
necessary  means  to  a  divinely-appointed  end,  they  should 
be  considered  as  of  authority  from  God.  Ruling  elders 
represent  both  God  and  man. 

Historical  Authority  for  the  Office. 
Within  the  first  half  of  this  century  two  distinguished 
Presbyterian  divines — Dr.  Samuel  Miller,  professor  in 
the  Princeton  Theological  Seminary,  and  Dr.  James  P. 


RULING  ELDERS.  307 

Wilson,  pastor  of  the  First  Presbyteriau  Church  of 
Philadelphia— opposed  each  other  with  equal  ability  and 
exhaustive  research  in  patristic  testimony,  including  the 
apostolic  and  all  the  earlier  Fathers,  on  the  office  of 
ruling  elder.  The  former  prevailed  with  abiding  im- 
pression and  active  influence  over  the  whole  Church 

not  only  because  of  his  position  as  a  teacher,  of  his  large 
learning  and  of  his  loyal  devotion  to  Westminster  doc- 
trine and  polity,  but  also  because  he  was  the  survivor 
of  the  two  and  had  the  last  word  in  a  small  volume 
published  and  distributed  widely   by  the   Presbyterian 
Board  of  Publication.     There  was  no  animosity  between 
these  two  eminent  fathers,  and  no  inaccuracy  on  either 
side  in  citing  and  translating  the  facts  of  history ;  but, 
renowned  as  he  was  for  logical  discrimination.  Dr.  Wil- 
son began  with  confused  premises  and  too  much  eager- 
ness for   absolute   refutation.      His  imperfect  exeg^esis 
had  furnished  him  with  certain  postulates  which  he  was 
determined  to  make  the  standard  of  interpretation  for 
Church  history.     One  of  these  was  that  only  two  orders 
of  office  can  be  found  in  the  New  Testament,  as  in  Phil. 
1.  1  ;  another  was  that  no  generic  sense  can  be  given  to 
the  term  |' elder"  or  to  the  term  "bishop"  while  these 
are  used  interchangeably  and  precjisely  convertible  with 
each  other.      A  third   postulate  was' that  there  is  no 
spiritual   oversight   of   the  flock   in   any  other  than   a 
teaching  elder.     Dr.  Miller,  on  the  other  hand,  recog- 
nized the  generic  sense  of  "elder"  in  1  Tim.  v.  17  ami 
elsewhere,  and  was  willing  to  accept  three  orders  in 
office— bishops,  elders  and  deacons  in  diversified  func- 
tions—because he  considered  three  distinct  ordinations  to 
be  proper.     But  only  one  preaching  order  after  the  time 
of  the  apostles  would  he  acknowledge,  and  this  called 


308  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

"bishop"  in  relation  to  a  particular  pastorate — an  elder 
who  became  primus  inter  pares  in  being  deputed  by  the 
people  and  associate  elders  on  the  bench  to  guide  the 
Church  by  the  ministry  of  the  word.  These  associate 
elders,  continued  in  their  immemorial  exercise  of  ruling 
— which  in  the  Church  is,  of  course,  a  spiritual  over- 
sight —  would  be  as  properly  included  in  the  name 
"bishop"  as  in  that  of  "elder;"  hence  the  plural, 
"bishops,"  in  Phil.  i.  1.  And  at  the  first  these  elders, 
being  so  little  distinguished  from  one  another  by  their 
attainments,  must  have  seemed  one  office  much  more 
than  now,  when  the  process  of  education  in  preparing 
one  specially  for  his  great  office  makes  the  distinction 
of  eldership  so  manifest  that  superficial  observation  would 
have  our  elders  generically  rather  than  specifically  dis- 
tinct in  office,  and  therefore  not  scriptural.  This  truer 
outline  of  interpretation  takes  Presbytery  by  the  hand 
and  leads  us  through  the  artless  literature  of  the  first 
ages  with  much  more  satisfaction  as  we  find  organiza- 
tion of  the  early  post-apostolic  Church  more  conformed 
to  the  model  of  inspiration  and  less  deflected  from  the 
original  norm  than  we  had  cause  to  fear  in  the  vicissi- 
tude and  hardship  to  which  the  forming  period  of  the 
visible  Church  was  exposed.  The  dispute  over  the 
Fathers — of  the  first  two  centuries,  at  least — is  one  of 
words  only,  a  logomachy  of  names,  "  bishop,"  "  elder," 
"  deacon,"  and  "  deaconess,"  and  the  numerals  "  three," 
"two"  and  "one,"  applied  to  orders. 

The  first  of  the  apostolic  Fathers,  and  one  who  had 
probably  worked  with  the  apostle  Paul,  was  Clement  of 
Rome,  in  the  first  century,  who  represented  the  church 
at  Rome  in  a  letter  to  the  church  at  Corinth  on  the 
subject  of   disturbances   in   the    latter   church.      These 


RULING  ELDERS.  309 

were  occasioned  by  a  revolt  of  the  people  against  the 
authority  of  their  officers — npta^urtpot,  "  elders :"  "  Let 
the  flock  of  Christ  enjoy  peace  with  its  elders  appointed 
over  it ;"  "  For  ye  did  all  things  without  respect  of 
persons,  and  walked  in  the  commandments  of  God, 
being  obedient  to  those  who  had  the  rule  over  you,  and 
giving  all  fitting  honor  to  the  presbyters  among  you ;" 
"  Ye,  therefore,  who  laid  the  foundation  of  this  sedition, 
submit  yourselves  to  the  presbyters,  and  receive  correc- 
tion so  as  to  repent ;"  "  It  is  disgraceful,  beloved,  yea 
highly  disgraceful,  and  unworthy  of  your  Christian 
profession,  that  such  a  thing  should  be  heard  of,  as  that 
the  most  steadfast  and  ancient  church  of  the  Corinthians, 
should,  on  account  of  one  or  two  persons,  engage  in  sedi- 
tion against  its  presbyters."  Prior  to  these  quotations 
bearing  on  the  subject  of  polity  and  discipline  he  wrote 
thus  of  the  apostles:  "And,  preaching  through  countries 
and  cities,  they  appointed  the  first-fruits,  having  first 
proved  them  by  the  Spirit,  to  be  bishops  and  deacons 
of  those  who  should  afterward  believe.  Nor  was  this 
anything  new,  since,  indeed,  many  ages  before,  it  was 
written  concerning  bishops  and  deacons."* 

These  excerpts  are  from  the  purest  fragment  of  pa- 
tristic literature,  next  to  canonical  Scripture,  in  genuine- 
ness and  authenticity,  and  the  only  uninspired  writino- 
of  the  first  century  which  is  received  without  challens-e 
or  doubt  in  historical  tradition.  From  these,  and  others, 
more  extended,  of  the  same  tenor,  we  may  safely  make 
the  following  inferences :  (1)  That  no  diocesan  bishop, 
or  bishop  over  bishop,  was  recognized  in  the  first  cen- 
tury after  the  apostles.  As  the  great  reason,  according 
to  Jerome,  for  the  existence  of  such  a  hierarch  was  to 

*  Isa.  Ix.  17. 


310  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

compose  and  conserve  unity  in  the  Church,  and  as  the 
trouble  at  Corinth  which  Clement  wrote  to  remedy  was 
the  distraction  of  unity,  it  is  obviously  sure  that  the 
total  omission  of  such  a  remedy  in  the  epistle  of  Clem- 
ent is  demonstration  that  no  such  bishop  was  known 
in  the  Christian  Church — for  the  first  hundred  years, 
at  least.  (2)  The  Corinthian  church  at  the  date  of  this 
letter  was  guided-  and  governed  by  a  plurality  of  elders 
— "  presbyters."  (3)  These  were  probably  the  consis- 
tory, or  "  Session,"  of  one  particular  church,  and  were 
not  the  Presbytery  of  a  number  of  churches  in  the  same 
city,  for  a  conspiracy  of  different  and  of  all  the  churches 
in  one  city  against  all  their  officers  would  be  almost 
impossible,  and  would  be  without  a  parallel  in  subse- 
quent history.  (4)  It  is  altogether  improbable  that 
such  a  sedition  at  Corinth  would  be  against  their  teach- 
ing elders  alone,  in  view  of  the  notable  attachment  of 
that  people  to  their  guides  in  teaching,  signified  by  the 
rebuke  of  the  apostle  Paul  for  partisan  and  factious 
adherence  to  such  officers.  1  Cor.  i.  12.  (5)  It  is  fair 
to  conclude,  therefore,  that  this  plurality  of  elders 
against  which  the  people  of  Corinth  had  rebelled  were 
mostly,  if  not  all,  ruling  elders,  according  to  the  well- 
known  fact  of  this  office  being  unpopular,  comparatively, 
in  every  age.  In  apostolic  and  reform  and  revival  times 
it  may  be  otherwise,  but  ordinarily  the  judicial  bench, 
composed  of  faithful  men  who  watch  the  people  famil- 
iarly and  intimately  in  the  aberrations  of  folly  and  sin, 
are  most  obnoxious  and  disliked  by  the  average  pro- 
fessors. And  at  Corinth  especially,  where  the  body  of 
the  church  had  been  arraigned  by  the  apostle  for  its 
tolerance  of  the  most  flagrant  offenders,  there  would 
naturally  be  an  outbreak  of  opposition  to  the  presbyters, 


RULING  ELDERS.  311 

who  represeDted  them  in  discipline,  while  proceeding 
against  the  incestuous  or  any  other  kind  of  scandalous 
character  according  to  Paul's  direction  in  one  particular 
case.  1  Cor.  v.  1-6.  We  may  safely  insist,  upon  the 
whole,  that  the  earliest  uninspired  document  of  primi- 
tive Christianity  suggests  on  its  face  and  contains  in 
logical  reason  a  ruling  eldership  as  distinctly  a  feature 
of  scriptural  polity. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  second  century  we  have  the 
next  phase  of  church  government,  to  be  noticed  in  the 
epistles  of  Ignatius,  which  ])lainly  hiut  Avhat  we  would 
naturally  expect  in  the  plurality  of  elders  ordained  in 
every  church  and  left  by  apostles  and  evangelists  to 
furnish  preaching  as  well  as  ruling  in  the  visible  Church. 
These  different  functions  would  reasonably  appear  to  be 
a  blended  commission — for  one  generation,  at  least,  until 
the  special  desiguation  of  the  teaching  elder  would  work 
out  the  distinction,  to  be  more  and  more  ajjpareut  in  the 
specific  culture  and  preparation  required  for  the  preach- 
ing vocation.  And  this  kind  of  elder,  separated  from 
his  brethren  at  the  ordinary  vocations  of  life  in  being 
wholly  given  to  the  ministry,  would  be  called  the 
"  bishop,"  while  they  also  were  bishops  in  their  com- 
mon degree  of  spiritual  oversight,  though  remaining 
under  the  denomination  of  "  elders."  The  bishop  now 
would  be  still  an  elder,  of  course,  in  exercising  rule  con- 
jointly, and  the  other  elders  would  be  bishops  also  in 
watchful  supervision  conjointly.  A  progressive  devel- 
opment of  distinction  among  elders  in  this  way  is  pre- 
cisely the  sketch  we  find  in  Ignatius's  writings  when  he 
so  often  and  formally  mentions  bishop,  presbyters  and 
deacons  in  speaking  of  church-officers. 

Without  touching  the  "  Ignatiau  controversy  "  about 


312  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  genuineness  of  the  text  which  is  called  his,  or  at- 
tempting to  decide — what,  probably,  never  can  be  de- 
cided— whether  the  shorter  or  the  longer  Greek  recen- 
sion of  the  seven  epistles  or  the  lately  discovered  Syriac 
version  be  the  most  genuine,  we  may  safely  say  for  our 
purpose  here  that,  without  conceding  any  one  of  them 
as  free  from  interpolation  by  succeeding  writers,  we  may 
take  the  subsequent  interpolation  as  a  bigger  type  of  the 
same  system  which  that  martyr  occasioned  by  his  crude 
and  extravagant  expressions  before  he  fell  into  the 
hands  of  Trajan,  only  belated  and  intended  for  a  larger 
scale  of  ecclesiastical  formation. 

That  Ignatius  meant  the  organization  of  one  particular 
church  in  his  oft-repeated  catalogue  of  officers — bishop, 
presbyters  and  deacons — will  be  sufficiently  evident  in 
selecting  two  of  his  epistles — viz.,  that  to  the  Mag- 
nesiaus  and  that  to  the  Tralliaus.  In  neither  Magnesia 
nor  Tralles  can  it  be  admitted  there  was  more  than  one 
particular  church.  The  former,  according  to  Strabo,  and 
to  Pliny  also,  was  but  fifteen  miles  distant  from  Ephesus, 
and  the  latter,  Tralles,  was  situated  a  little  north  of 
Magnesia.  The  ecc^lesiastical  centre  of  that  region — 
and,  indeed,  of  all  Lydia,  and  even  of  Asia  Minor — 
was  Ephesus,  where  there  was  a  plurality  of  elders, 
but  no  superior  bishop  mentioned  in  the  sacred  text. 
There  could  have  been,  therefore,  only  parochial  epis- 
copacy in  that  vicinity  and  region;  so  that  the  following 
quotations  are  an  exact  description  of  a  presbyterian 
polity  :  "  The  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to  the  Magnesians," 
chap.  iii.  :  ^'  Now,  it  becomes  you  also  not  to  treat  your 
bishop  too  familiarly  on  account  of  his  youth,  but  to 
yield  him  all  reverence,  ...  as  I  have  known  even 
holy  presbyters  do,  not  judging  rashly  from  the  mani- 


RULING  ELDERS.  313 

fest  youthful  appearance,  but  as  being  themselv^es  prudent 
in  God,  submitting  to  him — or,  rather,  not  to  hira,  but  to 
the  Fatlier  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  bishop  of  us  aU."  Again 
(ch.  vi.) :  "  I  exhort  you  to  study  to  do  all  things  with  a 
divine  harmony  while  your  bishop  presides  in  the  place 
of  God  and  your  presbyters  in  the  place  of  the  assembly 
of  the  apostles,  along  with  your  deacons.  .  .  .  Let  nothing 
exist  among  you  that  may  divide  you  ;  but  be  ye  united 
with  your  bishop,  and  those  that  preside  over  you." 
Ch.  xiii. :  "  Study,  therefore,  to  be  established  in  the 
doctrines  of  the  Lord  and  the  apostles,  that  so  all  things 
whatsoever  ye  do  may  prosper  both  in  the  flesh  and 
spirit  .  .  .  with  your  most  admirable  bishop,  and  the 
well-compacted  spiritual  crown  of  your  Presbytery,  and 
the  deacons  who  are  according  to  God."  Thus  we  see 
the  primitive  eldership  distributed  in  every  paragrajih 
just  as  we  may  now  distribute  them  according  to  the 
Presbyterian  "  Form "  of  Church  government.  A 
bishop,  a  bench,  a  plurality — a  generic  name  for  all 
is  "  Presbytery,"  whether  in  one  parish  singly  or  in 
several  parishes  collectively.  And  this  name  is  a  special 
designation  wherever  allusion  is  made  to  ruling.  When 
"  holy  presbyters  "  would  cherish  and  sustain  a  youthful 
pastor  (bishoj)),  it  was  to  be  in  the  way  of  "  not  judging 
rashly,"  but  being  prudent,  submitting  to  him,  etc. 
Every  mention  of  the  eldership  has  a  tincture  of  judg- 
ment and  ruling  in  the  color  of  expression — three  kinds 
of  office,  and  not  three  orders  in  the  same  office,  of  preach- 
ing ;  three  functions  in  the  harmony  of  government  and 
direction,  all  distinct  from  one  another,  without  preclud- 
ing at  all  the  union  of  two  in  one  or  more  of  the  official 
persons  so  expressly  distinguished.  "That  so  there  may 
be  a  union  both  fleshly  and  spiritual,"  he  subjoins  to  his 


314  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

deliueation  of  polity.  Neither  Ignatius  nor  any  other 
apostolic  Father  imagined  that  the  ultimate  idea  of  the 
Church  would  ever  be  simplified  to  s})irit  alone,  dispens- 
ing with  organization  when  united  to  one  another  in 
union  to  a  common  Head,  and  sublimating  the  aggre- 
gate of  redeemed  souls  to  that  of  angels,  although  with- 
out some  organization  even  angels  cannot  serve  and  help 
and  rejoice. 

Ignatius  "  to  the  holy  church  which  is  at  Tralles, 
Asia "  (ch.  ii.) :  "  It  is  therefore  necessary,  whatsoever 
things  ye  do,  to  do  nothing  without  the  bishop.  And 
be  ye  subject  also  to  the  Presbytery,  as  to  the  apostles 
of  Jesus  Christ.  ...  It  is  fitting,  also,  that  the  deacons, 
as  being  of  the  mvsteries  of  Jesus  Christ,  should  in  everv 
respect  be  pleasing  to  all.  For  they  are  not  ministers  of 
meat  and  drink,  but  servants  of  the  Church  of  God. 
They  are  bound  therefore  to  avoid  all  grounds  of 
accusation,  as  they  would  do  fire."  Ch.  iii. :  "  Let 
all  reverence  the  deacons  as  an  appointment  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  the  bishop  as  Jesus  Christ,  who  is  the  Son 
of  the  Father,  and  the  presbyters  as  the  Sanhedrim  of 
God  and  assembly  of  the  apostles.  Apart  from  these 
there  is  no  Church."  Ch.  xiii. :  "  Fare  ye  well  in  Jesus 
Christ  while  ye  continue  subject  to  the  bishop  as  to  the 
command,  and  in  like  manner  to  the  Presbytery.  And 
do  ye  every  man  love  one  another  with  an  undivided 
heart."  These  quotations  from  the  epistle  to  the  Tral- 
lians  might  be  multiplied  to  the  same  eifect  from  the 
same  and  other  epistles  of  Ignatius  which  are  accepted 
by  the  learned  generally  as  most  worthy  of  credit, 

A  fair  analysis  of  these  last  will  indicate,  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  second  century  :  1.  That  without  organ- 
ization there  was  no  Church  recognized  as  called  to  be 


RULING  ELDERS.  315 

visibly  or  invisibly  such ;  2.  That  this  organization  ou 
earth  consisted  of  bishop,  elders  and  deacons,  with 
whom  the  people  were  to  be  officered;  3.  That  the 
faithful  were  to  be  subject  in  like  manner  to  bishops  and 
elders,  whilst  deacons  also  were  to  be  reverenced  as  an 
appointment  of  Christ ;  4.  This  plurality  of  elders  in 
one  church  is  likened  to  a  plurality  of  apostles  in 
council — of  course,  in  the  exercise  of  judicial  authority 
— and  again  likened  to  "  the  Sanhedrim  of  God,"  the 
highest  judicial  authority  of  the  Jewish  Church  ;  5.  Dea- 
cons were  not  considered  ministers  of  the  word,  nor  yet 
rulei's  like  the  elders,  nor  **  ministers  of  meat  and  drink" 
only  in  the  service  of  tables,  but  of  spiritual  charities 
also,  and  general  benevolence — "servants  of  the  Church 
of  God."  Thus  we  see  how  the  famed  "  Theophorus," 
scarcely  a  century  later  than  the  incarnation  of  Jesus, 
precisely  and  repeatedly  described  the  Presbyterian 
system  of  church  government,  fairly  developed  in 
the  structure  of  a  particular  church.  And  there  is 
not  a  line  of  all  the  writings  properly  ascribed  to  Igna- 
tius which  enlarges  the  scale  of  his  meaning  to  the  pro- 
portions of  a  diocesan  episcopacy.  If  it  be  objected  that 
even  the  shorter  Greek  recension  of  his  letters  may  be 
questioned  and  has  been  denied  by  some  scholars  to  be 
genuine,  we  have  Archbishop  Ussher,  Archbishop  Wake 
and  Bishop  Pearson  to  the  contrary,  and  a  great  multi- 
tude of  Anglican  authorities  besides,  in  maintaining  at 
least  the  two  epistles  from  which  we  have  quoted  to  be 
genuine — so  much,  indeed,  of  concession  that  we  have  a 
good  ad-hominem  argument  against  prelacy  in  particular, 
and  decided  evidence  that  ruling  elders  did  not  all  preach 
and  tiiat  deacons  did  not  preach  at  all.  Presbytery  in 
each   organization,   however,  had    begun  to   allow   the 


316  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

public  teacher,  becoming  primus  inter  pares,  a  special 
episcopate  in  the  parish,  and  so  to  become  the  bishop, 
whilst  the  oversight  of  elders  engrossed  in  ruling  only 
would  retain  the  exercise  of  discipline  and  only  that 
much  of  oversight  which  is  necessarily  implied  in  this 
ordinance. 

Later  than  the  martyrdom  of  Ignatius  was  that 
of  Polycarp,  who  suffered  about  the  middle  of  the 
second  century.  Though  he  himself  is  called  by  early 
writers  bishop  of  Smyrna,  and  doubtless  was  so  in  the 
parochial  sense,  being  pastor  of  that  particular  flock, 
and  by  his  contemporaries  in  the  ministry  of  that  age 
exhorted  to  be  "  personally  acquainted  with  every  mem- 
ber, to  seek  out  all  by  name  and  not  overlook  even  the 
servantmen  and  maids  of  his  charge,"  yet,  in  writing 
to  the  Philippians,  whom  the  apostle  Paul  greeted 
"  with  the  bishops  and  deacons,"  he  also  mentioned  but 
two  orders  of  office,  which  he  denominated  "elders 
[presbyters]  and  deacons,"  without  mentioning  "  bishop" 
at  all,  showing  the  scriptural  identity  of  presbyter  and 
bishop.  In  chap.  vi.  he  gives  the  duties  required  of 
presbyters,  evidently  in  the  generic  sense  of  the  word — 
teachers  and  rulers  both,  the  prevailing  import  being 
characteristic  of  the  elders  in  their  ancient  and  original 
duties  and  qualifications  of  inspection  and  rule :  "  And 
let  the  presbyters  be  compassionate  and  merciful  to  all, 
bringing  bacik  those  that  wander,  visiting  all  the  sick, 
and  not  neglecting  the  Avidow,  the  orphan  or  the  poor, 
but  always  providing  for  that  which  is  becoming  in  the 
sight  of  God  and  men,  abstaining  from  all  wrath,  re- 
spect of  persons  and  unjust  judgment,  keeping  far  off' 
from  all  coveteousness,  not  quickly  crediting  [reports] 
against  any  one,  not  severe  in  judgment,  as  knowing 


RULING  ELDERS.  317 

that  we  are  all  under  a  debt  of  siu.  If,  then,  we  entreat 
the  Lord  to  forgive  us,  we  ought  also  ourselves  to  for- 
give ;  for  we  are  before  the  eyes  of  our  Lord  and  God, 
aud  we  must  all  appear  at  the  judgment-seat  of  Christ, 
and  must  every  one  give  an  account  of  himself."  Plainly, 
this  charge  suits  a  body  of  presbyters  who  are — in  the  ma- 
jority, at  least — ruling  elders,  and  must  appear  amazingly 
defective  on  the  hypothesis  that  all  the  pi-esbyters  were 
preachers.  Not  a  word  is  here  about  the  gospel  to  be 
preached  in  season  and  out  of  season,  rightly  dividing 
the  word  of  truth  aud  giving  to  every  one  his  portion. 
This  fragment  of  antiquity,  which  no  critic  has  chal- 
lenged for  its  genuineness,  must  reveal  to  us  a  ruling 
eldership  distinctly  continued  in  the  second  century. 
For,  surely,  this  "apostolical  presbyter,"  as  he  was  called 
by  his  pupil  Ireuaeus,  having  been  conversant,  as  Clem- 
ent had  been,  with  the  apostles  of  our  Lord,  would  not 
have  headed  the  address  of  his  letter  "  Polycarp  and  the 
presbyters  with  him "  if  these  had  all  been  preaching 
elders,  and  say  not  a  word  about  preaching  itself  in  the 
body  of  his  epistle,  which  is  one  of  extended  and  minute 
injunction  of  duty  aud  behavior,  distinctly  characteris- 
tic of  "  ruling  well  "  in  each  particular  church. 

Belonging  to  the  first  half  of  the  second  century,  we 
may  notice,  without  ascertaining  dates  precisely,  frag- 
ments which  Ireuaeus  and  Eusebius  have  partially  pre- 
served, first  gleaning  a  passage  or  two  from  Hermas  of 
Rome,  who  was  contemporary  with  Clement,  and  like 
him,  most  probably,  meant  by  the  name  in  Scripture. 
He  speaks  of  eldei-s  always  in  the  plural  number  as 
exercising  authority  in  the  church.  The  Pastor  of  Her- 
mas had  a  popularity  for  two  or  three  centuries  in  the 
early  Church  analogous,  it  has  been  said,  to  that  of 


318  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  Pilgrim's  Progress,  by  John  Bunyan,  through  these 
last  generations.  Though  extremely  fanciful,  and  even 
frivolous  at  times,  it  must  have  had  substantial  mean- 
ing to  the  mind  of  that  heroic  age,  in  which  it  had  a 
currency  next  to  that  of  canonical  history  and  epistle, 
and  even  read  in  some  churches,  according  to  tradition, 
as  if  given  by  inspiration  for  that  purpose.  In  "Vision" 
2  and  chap.  iv.  we  read  thus  :  "  But  you  will  read  the 
words  in  this  city  along  with  the  presbyters  who  preside 
over  the  church."  In  "  Vision  "  3  and  chap.  v.  we 
read  :  "  Hear  now  with  regard  to  the  stones  which  are 
in  the  building.  Those  square  white  stones  which  fitted 
exactly  into  each  other  are  apostles,  bishops,  teachers 
and  deacons  who  have  lived  in  godly  purity,  and  have 
acted  as  bishops  and  teachers  and  deacons  chastely  and 
reverently  to  the  elect  of  God."  Manifestly,  the  bishops 
here  mentioned,  coming  after  the  apostles  and  plural  in 
number,  must  be  presbyters  identically  as  the  two  names 
are  used  in  the  New  Testament,  and  these  are  expressly 
made  distinct  from  "  teachers,"  who  come  after  them  in 
this  enumeration.  And  these  varieties  of  office  are 
"  fitted  exactly  to  each  other  "  in  observing  the  sequence 
of  history  as  to  their  appointment:  first,  apostles;  next, 
elders,  "  ordained  in  every  church ;"  next,  teachers, 
when  the  apostles  had  finished  their  testimony  and  de- 
volved upon  the  elders'  bench  the  jirovince  of  teaching 
for  all  time,  and  therefore  gradually  distinguished  from 
the  body  of  elders  by  the  development  of  fitness  in 
some — not  all^— for  ministry  of  the  word,  and  hence 
called  "teachers,"  though  remaining  bishops  to  preside 
over  the  Church  in  common  with  other  elders,  who 
remained  on  the  judicial  bench  to  rule.  Thus  we  have, 
on  the  whole  breadth  of  gospel  teaching,  in  Hernias,  a 


RULING  ELDERS.  319 

significant  distinction  made,  corresponding  to  what  Paul 
made  in  1  Tim.  v.  17. 

The  fragment  of  Papias,  called  "  bishop  of  Hier- 
apolis,"  by  subsequent  historians  a  martyr,  who  was 
said  to  have  been  a  hearer  of  the  apostle  John,  and  by 
Eusebius  to  have  been  a  learned  man  well  acquainted 
with  the  Scriptures  and  the  resources  of  history,  must 
be  dated  in  the  first  half  of  the  second  century.  It  is 
remarkable  for  the  total  omission  of  the  word  "  bishop," 
giving  even  to  the  apostles  the  name  "  elders,"  indicat- 
ing that  the  very  highest  office  in  the  Church  of  the 
New  Testament  is  that  of  presbyter :  "  If,  then,  any 
one  who  had  attended  on  the  elders  came,  I  asked 
minutely  after  their  sayings  what  Andrew  or  Peter  said, 
or  what  was  said  by  Philip,  or  by  Thomas  or  by  James, 
or  by  John  or  by  Matthew,  or  by  any  other  of  the 
Lord's  disciples ;  which  things  Aristion  and  the  pres- 
byter John,  the  disciples  of  the  Lord,  say.  For  I 
imagined  that  what  was  to  be  got  from  books  was  not 
so  profitable  to  me  as  what  came  from  the  living  and 
abiding  voice."  The  parlance  of  the  apostolic  age — in 
which  both  Peter  and  Jolm,  we  know,  called  themselves 
elders — reproduced  in  this  way  three  generations  later, 
makes,  we  see,  the  highest  dignity  in  the  Church  to  be 
the  eldership,  and  a  plurality  of  elders  to  be  the  normal 
organization  of  every  church,  and  the  certainty  that 
these  could  not  all  have  been  preachers  without  a  failure 
of  the  Church  upon  her  mission,  when  the  harvest  was 
so  great  and  the  laborers  were  so  few,  in  having  a  sur- 
plusage like  this  in  crowded  occupation  at  home.  Only 
a  plurality  of  ruling — not  teaching — elders  in  each  or- 
ganization can  solve  the  enigma. 

About  the  middle  of  the  second  century  Justin  Martyr 


320  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

is  to  be  noticed.  He  was  the  first  Christian  philosopher, 
and  seems  to  have  been  successively  Stoic,  Pythagorean 
and  Platonic  before  his  conversion  to  Christianity.  It 
is  uncertain  whether  he  was  ever  an  ecclesiastic  himself, 
though  pre-eminently  a  teacher  and  an  apologist  for 
Christianity.  In  his  apologies  to  the  Antonines  he  de- 
scribes minutely  the  ministrations  of  word  and  ordi- 
nances by  the  pastor  of  a  Christian  congregation,  wdiom 
he  calls  president  of  the  Church  in  using  the  Greek 
term  nposaro)^ — the  same  that  in  its  plural  form  is  used 
in  1  Tim.  v.  17  to  express  "elders  that  rule."  Here  it 
has  been  alleged  that  both  the  ruler  and  the  preacher 
must  be  included  in  the  notion  of  presiding,  and,  no 
other  kind  of  officers  than  deacons  being  mentioned  by 
Justin,  it  has  been  concluded  that  no  ruling  elders  dis- 
tinctly existed  between  president  and  deacon  under  his 
observation.  But  we  cannot  believe  that  because  one 
presiding  elder  was  both  ruler  and  teacher,  therefore  no 
other  elders  could  be  associated  with  him  in  the  over- 
sight of  a  church  as  rulii]g  elders  only,  yet  virtually 
presiding  also.  The  Ephori  of  ancient  Sparta — a  magis- 
tracy of  five  coequal  censors  elected  by  the  people — had 
a  common  supervision  of  public  aifairs  competent  to 
regulate  kings  as  well  as  people  with  supreme  arbitra- 
tion ;  yet  one  of  these,  with  the  consent  of  the  others,  pre- 
sided at  their  council,  and  was  called  by  this  very  name 
Tzpoeard);:,  without  any  one  supposing  that  he  was  alone 
in  such  supremacy  or  that  the  chosen  associates  were 
inferior  in  rank  to  tlieir  president.  The  force  of  this 
objection  is  but  nominal.  Ecclesiastics  who  reject  our 
system  of  ruling  elders  are  in  the  habit  of  dubbing  these 
officers  with  disparaging  names  prefixed,  such  as  lay 
elders,  who  are  subordinate  officials,  etc.,  all  of  which 


RULING  ELDERS.  321 

we  consider  gratuitous.    The  ruling  elder  and  the  teach- 
ing  are  co-ordinately  presbyters   in   representing  alike 

the  people  whom  they  guide  and   by  whom  they  are 
chosen. 

When  we  proceed  to  the  third  century,  the  first  Father 
to  be  noticed  is  Ireuseus,  who  suffered  death  at  its  thresh- 
old, A.  D.  202,  probably  at  Lyons.  The  phraseology  of 
his  ecclesiasticisni  is  decidedly  Presbyterian.  He  writes 
of  presbyters  and  bishops  being  the  same  officers  with 
such  designations  interchangeably  used,  urging  against 
the  heretics  a  derivation  of  truth  from  the  apostles 
through  the  channel  of  succeeding  "  pi-esby ters "  care- 
fully transmitted,  making  the  office  of  presbyter  the 
highest  in  the  Christian  Church  and  the  chain  of  con- 
nection and  identity  Avith  her  founders.  Apostolical 
succession  is  presbyterial  succession,  and  of  course  to  be 
traced  through  the  representative  presidents  of  presby- 
terian  organizations.  In  all  the  ages  corporations  act 
and  speak  through  their  presiding  officers,  but  this 
never  means  the  president  is  the  only  corporator  who 
has  authority,  or  that  his  oversight  is  unaided  by  his 
peei-s,  or  that  he  acts  without  their  counsel  in  the  course 
of  direction.  On  the  contrary,  in  the  light  of  all  ob- 
servation and  common  sense,  the  use  of  this  appellative 
in  connection  with  "  presbyter,"  such  as  Irenseus  intro- 
duced in  the  phrase  npeal-iuTepoc  npoazdre^,  "presiding 
elders,"  must  indicate  other  elders  coexisting  who  had 
authority  without  formally  presiding  over  those  they 
ruled  or  those  with  whom  they  ruled.  Such  elders  would 
naturally  be  passed  over  in  silence  by  the  writer  simply 
because  of  their  equality  in  rank  and  identity  in  work 
with  the  president.  It  is  true  beyond  a  doubt  that  if 
"fay"  presbyters,  or  elders  of  "subordinate"  and  "  in- 

21 


322  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ferior"  class,  had  existed  then,  they  would  have  been 
mentioned  by  Justin  and  Irenaeus,  just  as  they  would  be 
now  in  the  standard  of  Presbyterian  polity  if  they  existed. 
But  we  know  of  no  such  elders  in  the  reformation  and 
reconstruction.  It  may  be  convenient  for  some  opponents 
now  to  invent  the  adjectives,  but  they  do  not  hold  :  words 
may  be  things,  but  they  do  not  make  things. 

There  is  one  .passage  in  Ireuseus,  however,  that  is 
more  than  silence  in  regard  to  some  classification  of 
eldens.  In  Book  3,  ch.  xiv.,  referring  to  the  memorable 
interview  of  the  apostle  Paul  with  the  elders  of  Ephesus 
meeting  him  at  Miletus,  Irenseus  thus  writes  :  "  The 
bishops  and  presbyters  who  were  from  Ephesus  and 
other  neighboring  cities,  being  convened  at  Miletus, 
because  he  (Paul)  was  hastening  to  spend  Pentecost  at 
Jerusalem,"  etc.  This  passage — wiiich  mentions  bishops 
and  presbyters  distinctively,  as  if  they  were  not  the  same, 
though  every  otlier  page  of  Irenseus  used  them  promis- 
cuously— would  indeed  be  contrary  and  inconsistent  with 
himself  and  aifbrd  a  handle  to  diocesan  episcopacy,  bating 
the  wonder  that  nothing  is  said  of  "  bishops"  in  the  New- 
Testament  account  of  the  case.  But  suppose  we  make 
the  bishops  teaching  elders  and  the  presbyters  along  with 
them  ruling  elders ;  then  everything  is  clear  and  con- 
sistent according  to  Scripture,  and  confirmatory  of  every 
position  we  take  in  this  analysis  of  the  Fathers.  We 
have  no  need  of  detecting  interpolation  or  bad  transla- 
tion here.  It  indicates  the  gradual  process  of  distinc- 
tion for  the  presiding  presbyter  among  his  brethren  after 
they  had  chosen  him  to  be  their  preacher  and  pastor  of 
the  people,  and  that  Irenseus  preferred  the  designation 
of  "bishop"  to  that  of  "president,"  which  Justin 
Martyr  had  introduced,  and  through  whom,  as  repre- 


RULING  ELDERS.  323 

senting  the  bench  of  rulers  in  each  particular  church, 
the  apostolical  tradition  had  come  down  to  his  time. 

The  same  construction  must  be  made  of  the  little  we 
find  in  the  literature  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  which 
belongs  to  the  last  thirty  years  of  the  second  century, 
on  the  church  polity  of  his  age.  He  also  speaks  of 
bishops  and  elders  interchangeably  as  the  same  official 
rank  and  one  only  in  the  ministry  of  the  word.  And 
yet,  when  he  comes  to  speak  of  the  heavenly  state  and 
the  degrees  of  perfect  felicity  there,  he  affirms  that  these 
will  correspond  to  the  visible  dignities  attained  in  the 
militant  Church  on  earth,  which  he  makes  threefold — 
bishops,  elders  and  deacons.  In  this  particular,  then, 
we  must  charge  on  that  accomplished  scholar  inconsist- 
ency or  tautology  of  speech  if  he  does  not  intend  elders 
that  ruled  only  and  well  in  the  distinction  made  on  high. 
If  it  be  said  that  such  a  distinction  among  elders  on 
earth  would  have  been  expressed  by  Clement  in  describ- 
ing the  correspondence,  we  may  answer  that  it  is  def- 
initely enough  expressed  when  he  makes  distinction 
between  bishops  and  elders,  maintaining,  at  the  same 
time,  that  these  were  identical  in  the  ministerial  office. 
The  first  term,  "  bishop,"  is  the  elder  that  both  rules 
and  teaches,  the  latter  capacity  awarded  him  by  his  col- 
leagues on  the  bench ;  the  second  term,  "presbyter,"  must, 
therefore,  import  that  jilurality  on  the  bench  which 
abides  in  the  capacity  of  ruling  only.  We  agree  with 
objectors  to  this  interpretation  that  because  "  lay  "  pres- 
byters— an  "  intermediate  "  and  "  inferior  "  class  of  pres- 
byters— were  not  mentioned  at  all  by  Clement  they  could 
have  had  no  existence  in  his  day,  and  say,  moreover,  that 
they  can  have  no  existence  in  this  day.  For  neither 
laical  rank  nor  inferior  grade  of  elders  can  be  found  in 


324  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

our  constitution,  and  we  must  consider  it  extremely 
illogical  to  beg  the  question  by  arbitrary  misnomer 
fixed  upon  an  order  which  existed  in  the  Church  be- 
fore Christ  was  born,  and  which  he  deigned  to  honor 
by  his  personal  attention  and  that  of  his  apostles. 

Cyprian  was  bishop  of  Carthage  at  the  middle  of  the 
third  century,  and  has  been  considered  the  churchman  of 
his  age.  Having  been  a  teacher  of  rhetoric  before  his 
conversion,  and  therefore  competent  in  the  use  of  lan- 
guage to  distinguish  with  propriety  things  which  differ, 
he  used  the  significant  phrase  "  teaching  elders "  to 
denote  as  a  class  presbyters  admitted  to  preach.*  A 
definite  correlation  to  this  must  be,  of  course,  our 
phrase  of  "  ruling  elders."  Anglican  expositors  frankly 
admit  it.  His  translator  and  scholiast,  Marshall,  says, 
"  It  is  hence,  T  think,  apparent  that  all  presbyters  were 
not  teachers,  but  assisted  the  bishop  in  other  parts  of  his 
office."  And  Bishop  Fell  to  the  same  purport  quotes 
our  text,  1  Tim.  v.  17,  saying,  "St.  Paul  appears  to 
have  made  a  distinction  in  ancient  times  between  teach- 
ing and  ruling  elders."  Dodwell,  of  the  seventeenth 
century — another  learned  and  strenuous  advocate  of 
prelacy — concedes  explicitly  that  Cyprian  distinguished 
teaching  from  ruling  elders,  making  the  same  distinction 
which  Paul  made  in  1  Tim.  v.  IT.f  It  is  worthy  of  re- 
mark that  Cyprian  did  not  make  the  ruling  class  inferior 
to  the  teaching  in  rank,  but  only  said  the  teaching  elders' 
place  was  more  "distinguished." 

Origen,  of  the  same  century,  despite  his  dreamy  specu- 
lations in  doctrine,  and  exegesis  also,  could  observe  prac- 
tical usages  with  all  the  simplicity  and  candor  of  a  child, 
and  one   might  imagine  a  Presbyterian  church  of  the 

*  Ep.  to  Phil.,  sec.  6.  f  Oyprianic  Dissertations,  sec.  6. 


RULING  ELDERS.  325 

nineteenth  century  before  his  eyes  when  he  wrote  in 
his  third  book  against  Celsus,  (chap,  li.)  the  following 
description  :  "  There  are  some  rulers  appointed  whose 
duty  it  is  to  inquire  concerning  the  manners  and  con- 
versation of  those  who  are  admitted,  that  they  may 
debar  from  the  congregation  such  as  commit  filthiness." 
This  is  the  Cambridge  translation,  by  Spencer,  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  The  Edinburgh  translation,  re- 
cently published  in  the  Ante-Nicene  Library,  though 
less  pointed  for  use  in  this  connection,  "  persons  "  being 
the  word  instead  of  "  rulers,"  is  made  substantially  the 
same  in  meaning — that  is,  the  discipline  of  the  Church 
was  exercised,  not  by  her  teachers  only,  nor  yet  by  her 
assembled  members  at  large,  but  by  persons  chosen  for 
this  ministration  especially,  to  inspect  the  character 
and  the  conduct  of  such  as  are  to  be  admitted  to  the 
communion  of  believers  or  to  be  excluded  as  unworthy 
of  such  privilege.  The  accuracy  of  this  and  other 
gleaning  from  the  third  century  is  vouched  for  by  the 
Madgeburg  Centuriators — a  great  Lutheran  treasury  of 
Church  history — in  one  sentence  :  "  The  right  of  decid- 
ing respecting  such  as  were  to  be  excommunicated,  or  of 
receiving  such  as  had  fallen,  was  vested  in  the  elders  of 
the  church."  * 

Here  our  induction  and  our  detail  of  history  may 
well  desist  when  we  approach  the  last  shades  of  this 
vital  office  in  our  system  as  its  origin  and  its  outline 
were  given  at  the  beginning.  And  the  most  compendi- 
ous way  of  closing  the  line  of  historical  testimony  be- 
fore tlie  great  Reformation  is  to  group  in  half  a  dozen 
particulars  the  facts  which  ante-Nicene  and  Nicene  de- 
velopments afford. 

*  Cent.  3,  cap.  7. 


326  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

(1)  The  enhancement  of  episcopacy  in  every  parish. 
Organization  of  a  particular  church  necessarily  departed 
from  that  of  the  synagogue  in  having  a  fixed  ministry 
at  length,  easily  arranged  in  consistency  with  all  other 
features  of  the  old  ecclesia  and  required  by  the  "  ever- 
lasting gospel."  Beginning  with  a  plurality  of  co-equal 
elders  in  every  church  and  a  consignment  of  the  great 
commission  to  these  representatives  of  the  people,  whom 
the  people  chose  by  their  own  suffrage,  the  mission  of 
God's  word,  when  apostles  departed  and  supernatural 
gifts  were  withdrawn,  exacted  of  this  venerable  bench 
more  than  the  direction  of  preaching,  as  the  elders  had 
hitherto  discerned  and  selected  it,  among  the  many  who 
went  to  and  fro  with  the  gifts  which  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  Church.  Within  each  established  parish 
provision  must  now  be  made  for  a  permanent  service 
of  acceptable  preaching.  Doubtless  every  eldership  re- 
tained much  of  the  elevation  if  not  the  endowment, 
much  of  the  zeal  and  consecration  if  not  the  miracle,  of 
that  initial  period,  and  piety  itself  is  a  great  talent ;  yet, 
comparatively,  even  on  that  high  level,  there  must  have 
remained  a  great  diversity  of  gifts.  All  were  presumed 
to  have  capacity  for  ruling  well,  or  they  would  not  at 
such  a  time  have  been  chosen  to  the  place  of  judges  and 
directors.  All  were  "  apt  to  teach  "  also,  or  they  would 
not  answer  for  judges  and  rulers.  No  man,  either  in 
Church  or  in  State,  is  fit  to  rule  who  cannot  explain  to 
the  people  ruled  the  nature  of  and  the  reason  for  all  his 
decisions.  As  already  observed,  the  great  questions  to 
be  answered  by  the  elders  now  are,  ''  Who  will  specially 
go  in  and  out  among  us  to  break  the  bread  of  life?" 
"  Who  will  go  for  us  far  hence,  even  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  with  the  glad  tidings  of  salvation  through  Jesus 


RULING  LLDEBS.  327 

Christ?"  Common  sense  among  the  elders  mnst  have 
been  competent  to  solve  their  problem  :  "  That  man 
among  ourselves  or  among  our  people  who  is  best  quali- 
fied— who,  like  Aaron  of  old,  is  one  of  whom  God 
would  say,  '  I  know  that  he  can  speak  well' — must  be 
our  choice."  And  the  preacher  at  home,  having  the 
elder's  ordination  and  the  people's  vote  for  this  public 
function,  would,  of  course,  unite  ruling  and  teaching 
tooether  in  the  oversight  to  which  he  is  chosen  with 
such  a  specialty,  and  would  soon  be  called  the  "  bishop  " 
with  distinction  of  emphasis.  The  other  elders,  retain- 
ing still  a  concurrent  oversight  and  not  being  called  to 
give  themselves  wholly  to  it,  would  unite  with  a  spir- 
itual oversight  the  ordinary  industries  of  life  to  provide 
things  honest  in  the  sight  of  all  men,  and  would  thus 
adorn  the  doctrine  they  held  by  consistent  walk  and 
conversation  as  ensamples  to  the  flock.  But,  obviously, 
the  guidance  and  the  government  would  be  conspicu- 
ously trusted  more  and  more  to  the  teaching  elder,  whose 
privilege,  and  whose  duty  also,  were  to  live  at  the  altar 
with  exclusive  occupation,  to  study  the  people  as  well  as 
the  books,  and  to  suggest  to  the  Session  or  the  consistory 
of  elders  the  measures  proper  to  be  taken  in  the  man- 
agement of  their  charge.  Being  but  an  "  earthen  ves- 
sel "  in  possessing  such  a  treasure,  and  only  too  willing 
by  nature  to  covet  more  in  proportion  as  responsibilities 
were  multiplied,  the  bishop  would  gradually  engross  all 
authority  of  both  word  and  rule,  exemplifying  sadly 
the  baleful  eifects  of  ambition  in  the  Church  as  Avell 
as  in  the  world.  The  chief  obstacle  in  this  way  of  ag- 
grandizement and  monopoly  was  the  faithfulness  of 
ruling  elders  in  his  council,  whose  independence  could 
not  easily  forget  its  own  memorial  and  could  hardly  be 


328  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

compromised  when  the  usurper  was  one  of  themselves. 
Struggles  ensued. 

(2)  And  the  next  step  of  the  bishop  was  to  humble 
this  order  of  his  fellows  and  to  promote  the  deacons — 
servants  of  the  church — to  a  position  of  higher  dignity 
than  that  of  the  rulers.  They  had  always  been  more 
subservient  to  his  purpose,  and  they  Avere  now  promoted 
to  the  rank  of  teachers — without,  indeed,  power  to  rule 
in  the  parish,  which,  however,  was  eifcctually  neutral- 
ized in  making  the  original  rulers  a  third  and  subor- 
dinate rank,  whose  authority,  therefore,  could  no  longer 
be  more  than  a  name.  This  altered  gradation  is  fully 
manifested  in  the  Gesta  Purgationis,  etc.,  which  appeared 
about  the  end  of  the  third  century,  where  the  orders  of 
church-office  are  catalogued  thus :  Presbyteri,  dlaconi  et 
seniores.  The  bishop  (parochial  yet)  now  took  to  him- 
self the  name  of  "presbyter"  as  it  had  been  used  at 
first — convertibly  with  "  bishop  " — and  had  the  deacons 
put  next  and  the  ruling  elders  put  last,  under  a  name 
which  was  appellative,  and  not  official,  signifying  merely 
old  men  who  were  supposed  to  have  attained  wisdom  by 
experience. 

(3)  This  degradation  could  not  be  endured  by  ruling 
elders,  and  the  next  conflict  Avas  either  to  have  their 
authority  restored  or  to  have  the  now  nominal  office 
discontinued.  And,  seeing  the  teacher  was  honored 
more  than  the  ruler  M'ho  had  been  disparaged  and  be- 
come a  blank  under  episcopal  usurpation,  those  that 
loved  the  Church  more  than  the  world,  the  so-called 
seniors,  now  aspired  to  become  ministers  of  the  word 
and  the  sacraments.  The  bishop  complied  as  far  as 
possible  with  such  application,  because  it  would  oblit- 
erate an  office  which  had  been  an  obstacle  and  an  offence 


RULING   ELDERS.  329 

to  him  so  long.  But  iu  consenting  to  this  he  reduced 
the  elders,  from  whose  hands  orio-inallv  his  own  office 
came,  to  the  condition  of  laymen,  favoring  the  laical 
and  official  alike  as  candidates  for  the  ministry,  and  of 
course  exalting  his  own  authority  as  the  sole  ordainer  to 
any  gradation  of  office.  This  deplorable  inversion  was 
at  the  ragged  edge  of  consummation  when  the  Council 
of  Nice  was  called  by  Constantine. 

(4)  At  this  memorable  epoch  Church  and  State  were 
united  in  a  theocracy  which  compounded  the  Jewish 
hierarchy  of  three  orders  in  the  ministry  with  a  recon- 
structed expanse  of  secular  gradation  that  enlarged  the 
sphere  of  clerical  ambition,  confederating  spiritual  and 
imperial  authority  from  the  base  to  the  summit  of  car- 
nal promotion.  Of  course  the  robust  manliness  of  rul- 
ing elders  had  no  place  in  that  colossal  system,  and  yet 
the  creeping  ambition  of  parish  bishop  lost  its  final 
attainment  of  ruling  power  in  the  submergence  of  elders 
when  itself  had  to  be  yielded  to  another  above  him 
whom  the  empire  denominated  "  diocesan,"  and  the  old 
name  of  "presbyter"  was  restored  to  its  precedence  iu 
regard  to  deacon,  and  yet  divested  wholly  of  its  primi- 
tive significance  iu  ruling ;  and  ever  since  it  has  de- 
scended iu  papal  and  prelatic  organizations  as  presbytery 
without  power  even  to  ordain  except  as  equipage  in  the 
company  of  a  bishop,  when  he  does  it  with  exclusive 
authority  assumed,  and  they  merely  concur  iu  a  formal 
way. 

Now,  on  this  fourfold  induction  from  authentic  his- 
tory we  may  well  submit  a  challenge  to  those  who  reject 
the  ruling  eldership  as  no  feature  of  the  Church  in  its 
original  constitution,  with  these  interrogatories :  How 
could   it  be  that  all  the  Christian  elders  in  Scripture 


330  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

mention  were  preachers  of  the  word,  and  a  plurality 
of  these  in  every  church,  however  small,  and  living 
alike  at  the  altar,  to  which  they  were  to  be  given 
"  wholly,"  and  yet  surrender  to  one  of  themselves  the 
whole  business  of  teaching  and  ruling  together,  elimi- 
nating the  essence  of  the  old  ecclesia,  which  our  Lord 
and  his  apostles  honored  and  approved,  just  as  soon  as 
Paul  died  and  while  the  last  of  the  twelve,  John,  was 
yet  living?  How  could  it  be  that  deacons — the  servants 
of  the  church — were  advanced  to  the  ministry  of  the 
word,  and  therefore  put  above  and  before  elders,  at  the 
end  of  the  second  century,  if  the  elders  had  been  all  and 
always  ministers  of  the  word  before?  How  could  it 
be  that  presbyters  in  the  third  century  who  desired  to 
become  preachers,  if  they  had  been  such  already  and 
from  the  beginning,  had  to  stand  on  common  ground 
with  the  laity  in  making  application  for  license  and 
passing  trials  of  fitness  under  the  authority  of  a  bishop? 
And  if  all  the  elders  with  whom  the  New-Testament 
Church  began  were  alike  teaching  and  ruling  presbyters, 
why  is  it  that  such  inseparable  union  of  the  two  capaci- 
ties has  been  disrupted  by  popery  and  by  prelacy? 
Presbyters  with  them  may  preach,  but  may  not  rule  , 
elders  with  Presbyterians  may  rule,  and  may  not  preach. 
The  converse  is  just  as  good  on  one  side  as  on  the  other 
in  formula,  yet  "  and  "  is  better  than  "  but "  in  this  com- 
parison, for  it  makes  room  for  two  classes  of  presbyters 
— those  who  rule  only,  and  those  who  both  rule  and 
teach.  To  deny  ruling  to  the  presbyter  is  against  the 
meaning  of  this  word,  and  against  the  Bible  also. 

We  find  another  proof  historically  of  the  existence  of 
ruling  elders  from  the  beginning  as  a  distinct  office  in 
retrospective  expressions  of  regret  for  the  discontinuance, 


RULING  ELDERS.  331 

and  also  traces  of  its  lingering  in  corners  of  Christendom 
before  these  were  quite  swept  over  by  a  swollen  Catholi- 
cism wedded  now  to  secular  imperialism.  For  example, 
we  recall  the  testimony  of  Ambrose  in  tlie  fourth  cen- 
tury :  "  For  indeed  among  all  nations  old  age  is  honor- 
able. Hence  it  is  that  the  synagogue,  and  afterward  the 
church,  had  elders,  without  whose  counsel  nothing  was 
done  in  the  church ;  which  by  what  negligence  it  grew 
into  disuse  I  know  not,  unless,  perhaps,  by  the  sloth — 
or,  rather,  pride — of  the  teachers,  while  they  alone  wish 
to  be  accounted  something."  The  only  evasion  of  this  re- 
markable passage  ever  attempted  comes  from  the  first 
sentence  by  turning  "  elders"  into  adjectives,  and  falling 
back  to  the  appellative  origin  of  a  proper  name  or  a 
technical  term.  Obviously,  the  antithesis  in  this  pas- 
sage requires  the  word  "  elders "  to  be  taken  in  the 
official  sense  as  much  as  the  word  "teachers."  If  in 
the  one  term  it  has  only  an  adjective  sense,  so  it  must 
be  in  the  other ;  and  "  teachers "  cannot  mean  official 
ministers  of  the  word  any  more  distinctly  than  parents 
and  schoolmasters  as  well  as  preachers.  Besides,  "  among 
all  nations  old  age  is  honorable  "  still,  whatever  be  the 
changes  of  significance  in  language  and  in  derivation  of 
names. 

We  may  return  to  North  Africa,  where  conservative 
Christianity  lingered  so  long,  and  see  in  the  letters 
of  Augustine  the  significant  address  "To  the  beloved 
brethren,  the  clergy,  the  elders,  and  all  the  people  at 
Hippo."  This  enumeration  resembles  the  style  of 
Cyprian,  more  than  a  century  before,  in  distinguishing 
elders  as  teaching  and  ruling,  the  teaching  being  tlie 
"more  distinguished"  class.  We  may  pass  over  to 
Spain   a   century  later,  and   find   in   the  directions  of 


332  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT.    • 

Isidore  these  words :  "  The  elders  of  the  people  are 
first  to  be  taught,  that  by  them  such  as  are  placed  under 
them  may  be  more  easily  instructed."  This  exhortation 
of  the  fifth  century  ought  to  be  translated  for  every  par- 
ticular church  in  this  generation,  as  it  implies  a  capital 
qualification  of  ruling  elders  in  being  made  ''apt  to 
teach,"  privately  and  socially,  as  they  themselves  are 
publicly  instructed  by  "  teaching  elders."  Coming  back 
to  Rome,  also,  another  century  later,  we  hear  Gregory 
the  Great,  in  one  of  his  epistles  (19th,  2  Lib.)  caution- 
ing the  faithful  against  being  too  ready  to  believe  a  bad 
report  about  a  clergyman,  add  this  direction  :  "  Let  the 
truth  be  diligently  investigated  by  the  elders  of  the 
church  who  may  be  at  hand,  and  then,  if  the  character 
of  the  act  demand  it,  let  the  proper  punishment  fall  on 
the  offender."  Dr.  Samuel  Miller  of  Princeton,  in  his 
admirable  Essay  on  ruling  elders,  which  has  done  so 
much  to  conserve,  establish  and  advance  this  noble 
office  in  the  Presbyterian  system,  has  pursued  more 
exhaustively  the  gleanings  of  history  on  the  subject 
than  is  possible  within  our  limits.  Let  it  be  read  and 
pondered  still.  A  long  list  of  names  illustrious  for 
learning  and  candor,  making  an  ecclesiastic  catholicity 
on  the  subject  of  representative  eldership,  might  be 
added  in  advance  of  Dr.  Miller,  whose  tribute  he  has 
gathered  with  so  much  balance  of  critical  judgment  and 
faithful  citation,  such  as  Bullinger,  Beza,  Turretine, 
Van  Msestricht,  Tremellius,  Piscator,  Grotius,  Mus- 
covius  and  Neander.  And  prior  to  these  were  the 
witnesses — Waldenses  and  Bohemian  brethren — M'ho 
testified  at  the  Reformation  that  long  before  the  days 
of  Calvin  they  had  ruling  elders  distinct  from  teach- 
ing to  represent  the  people  in  the  care  and  government 


RULING  ELDERS.  333 

of  their  churches,  and  that  they  copied  the  Genevan 
model  at  last  only  for  a  more  perfect  restoration  of 
what  the  fury  of  persecution  had  marred  in  the  original 
platforms.  Catholicism  had  wandered  from  them  in 
governing  the  people  without  representation,  and  with- 
out even  a  plurality  of  counsellors  on  the  bench  of  any 
tribunal. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE  QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS. 

THE  following  are  full  and  apparently  exhaustive 
lists  in  which  it  is  conceded  on  all  sides  among 
biblical  and  fair  interpreters  that  bishops  and  elders 
are  names  for  the  same  office :  1  Tim.  iii.  2-7  :  "  A 
bishop  then  must  be  blameless,  the  husband  of  one 
wife,  vigilant,  sober,  of  good  behavior,  given  to  hos- 
pitality, apt  to  teach  ;  not  given  to  wine,  no  striker,  not 
greedy  of  filthy  lucre ;  but  patient,  not  a  brawler,  not 
covetous ;  one  that  ruleth  well  his  own  house,  having 
his  children  in  subjection  with  all  gravity ;  (for  if  a  man 
know  not  how  to  rule  his  own  house,  how  shall  he  take 
care  of  the  church  of  God?)  not  a  novice,  lest  being 
lifted  up  with  pride,  he  fall  into  the  condemnation  of 
the  devil.  Moreover  he  must  have  a  good  report  of 
them  which  are  without ;  lest  he  fall  into  reproach  and 
the  snare  of  the  devil."  Tit.  i.  5-9  :  "  For  this  cause 
left  I  thee  in  Crete,  that  thou  shouldest  set  in  order  the 
things  that  are  wanting,  and  ordain  elders  in  every  city, 
as  I  had  appointed  thee ;  if  any  be  blameless,  the  hus- 
band of  one  wife,  having  faithful  children  not  accused 
of  riot  or  unruly.  For  a  bishop  must  be  blameless,  as 
the  steward  of  God ;  not  self-willed,  not  soon  angry,  not 
given  to  wine,  no  striker,  not  given  to  filthy  lucre ;  but 
a  lover  of  hospitality,  a  lover  of  good  men,  sober,  just, 
holy,  temperate;   holding  fast  the  faithful  word  as  he 

.334 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        335 

hath  been  taught,  that  he  may  be  able  by  sound  doc- 
trine both  to  exhort   and  to  convince  the  gainsayers." 

If  all  the  elders  to  be  so  qualified  were  preachers  from 
the  date  of  these  directions,  why  is  it  not  so  said  on  the 
face  of  this  inspired  charter  ?  Not  one  word  contains  a 
hint  of  this  except  dcdaxrexov,  "  apt  to  teach."  1  Tim,  iii. 
2.  But  this  one  word  is  susceptible  of  generalization 
large  enough  to  embrace  teaching  and  ruling  elders 
both,  and  all  parents,  teachers  in  schools,  and,  indeed, 
the  whole  adult  membership  of  the  visible  Church,  who 
are  as  far  as  possible  to  be  instructors  of  one  another. 
The  only  clause  in  the  second  passage  (Tit.  i.  9  :  "  Hold- 
ing fast  the  faithful  word,  as  he  hath  been  taught,  that 
he  may  be  able  by  sound  doctrine  both  to  exhort  and  to 
convince  the  gainsayers  ")  would  apply  to  the  minister 
of  gifts  without  ordination,  like  Stephen,  and  also  every 
believer  of  enlightened  and  strong  convictions,  in  defend- 
ing the  faith.  Doubtless  the  ministry  of  the  word 
officially  is  included  in  such  a  formula,  and  perhaps 
mainly ;  but  certainly  it  is  not  exclusively  the  function 
of  preachers  to  hold  fast  the  faithful  word  as  they  have 
been  taught  for  such  a  purpose  at  any  time  or  in  any 
generation. 

Among  these  qualifications  we  may  generalize  the 
significance  more  largely  still,  and  give  a  passive  as  well 
as  an  active  sense  to  nearly  all  the  particulars  enumer- 
ated— especially  so  with  that  precise  and  specific  word 
which  is  regarded  as  peculiarly  distinctive,  "apt  to 
teach" — didaxTcxov.  In  its  active  sense,  fitness  for  teach- 
ing, as  we  have  seen,  it  is  broader  than  any  generaliza- 
tion we  can  give  to  "presbyter;"  but,  according  to  some 
of  the  best  lexicographers,  Schleusner  and  others,  it  may 
be  taken  as  passive  in  the  sense  of  docile  or  teachable, 


336  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

like  dcdaxToi  in  John  vi.  45  and  elsewhere.  The  only 
other  instance  of  its  use  in  Scripture  is  2  Tim.  ii.  24 : 
"And  the  servant  of  the  Lord  must  not  strive ;  but  be 
gentle  to  all  men,  apt  to  teach,  patient,"  etc.  The  word 
in  the  Vulgate  translating  this  term  is  doeibilem — that 
is,  teachable  himself,  that  he  may  "  in  meekness  instruct 
those  that  oppose  themselves,"  etc.  Thus  it  accords 
with  the  whole  context  that  the  servant  of  the  Lord, 
without  wrangling  on  "foolish  and  unlearned  questions," 
should  be  candid,  open  to  conviction,  truth-loving,  in- 
stead of  being  dogmatically  positive  and  prejudiced  and 
proof  against  reason. 

Here,  then,  is  the  marvellous  reduction  to  which  we 
come  in  testing  the  confident  claim  that  all  New-Testa- 
ment elders  must  be  the  public  and  official  teachers  of 
the  Charch — a  solitary  word  used  but  twice  in  the  Bible, 
in  both  instances  meaning  "  qualified  "  and  "  willing  to 
teach,"  either  publicly  or  privately,  .if  it  be  taken  in  an 
active  sense  ;  and  in  both  it  may  make  just  as  good  sense, 
in  its  connection,  to  be  taken  passively  and  rendered 
"  docility."  The  fact  is  when  the  New  Testament  men- 
tions ministers  of  the  word  distinctly  they  are  called 
"  ambassador,"  "  evangelist,"  "  steward,"  "  teacher," 
"  angel,"  "  builder,"  "  workman  " — any  analogous  or 
adjective  name  but  "  elder,"  which  is  always  generic 
after  the  apostles  left  the  stage,  if  not  sooner  when  any 
one  during  their  time  passed  over  fi'om  the  transient 
ministry  of  gifts  to  that  of  permanent  orders.  This 
generic  sense  of  ruling  merely  and  ruling  combined 
with  public  representative  teaching,  the  former  inher- 
ited from  the  synagogue,  and  the  latter,  with  the  same 
inheritance,  being  a  supervenient  function,  coming  on 
the  bench  as  preternatural  gifts  and  inspired  witnesses 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        337 

passed  away,  must  be  the  complex  import  of  "  elder." 
If  not,  why  does  the  sentiment  of  ruling  pervade  the 
whole  catalogue  of  qualifications,  and  not  one  distinct 
averment  of  oratorical  fitness  and  ability  is  to  be  dis- 
cerned ?  Moses  and  the  prophets  choose  the  man  who 
can  "  speak  well "  and  tell  us  of  "  the  eloquent  orator," 
and  will  the  glorious  ministration  of  the  Spirit  dispense 
with  such  fitness  for  the  New-Testament  ministry? 
When  Moses  declined  the  call  to  be  "  spokesman  unto 
the  people "  because  he  was  not  "  eloquent,"  the  Lord 
was  angry  with  such  a  diffidence  as  would  not  even  try 
to  be  speaker,  though  it  was  urged  with  the  promise, 
"  I  will  be  with  thy  mouth ;"  he  was  not,  therefore, 
excluded  from  the  embassy,  but  continued  in  the  chief 
direction,  and  one  of  the  same  family — his  brother — was 
chosen  to  be  the  speaker,  while  Moses  remained  as  coun- 
sellor and  guide :  "  He  shall  be  to  thee  instead  of  a 
mouth,  and  thou  shalt  be  to  him  instead  of  God." 
Was  this  grand  old  precedent  to  be  lost  on  the  Chris- 
tian Church  when  the  crisis  came  upon  her  elders  to 
conduct  preaching  at  home  and  send  ambassadors  to  the 
ends  of  the  earth  with  a  gospel  to  be  spoken  to  all 
nations?  Must  the  venerable  men  who  had  been  ap- 
pointed in  the  ministry  of  apostles  and  evangelists  to 
serve  in  pluralities  on  the  bench  of  ruling  in  our  syna- 
gogue be  compelled  to  preach  or  be  superseded  in  their 
places  by  those  who  would  and  could  preach  well?  If 
so,  the  departure  of  apostles  must  have  been  the  occasion 
of  a  revolution  instead  of  establishment  in  the  old 
ecclesia,  and  the  two  Testaments  fail  to  be  in  unison 
or  identity  in  building  a  visible  Church  on  the  Rock 
of  ages. 

The  lists  of  qualification  for  elders  which  are  given 

22 


338  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

by  inspiration  will  be  understood,  therefore,  to  belong 
to  the  root  or  trunk  of  this  one  great  office,  considered 
as  a  genus.  In  this  light  only  can  we  see  that  every 
phrase  or  word  is  applicable  to  both  the  branches  we 
adopt  in  our  system ;  and  if  we  say  the  lists  belong  only 
to  one  branch,  the  teaching  eldership,  we  may  well  be 
astonished  that  aptitudes  for  the  distinctive  work  of 
preaching  which  -  have  been  so  important  in  every  age 
and  are  more  and  more  important  as  the  culture  of  the 
world  goes  on,  and  which  are  at  this  hour  a  chief  concern 
of  the  Church  in  her  Assemblies,  pertaining  to  theologi- 
cal seminaries,  colleges,  education,  missions,  etc.,  should 
be  touched  in  Holy  Scripture  with  but  one  ambiguous 
word  that  means  private  and  social  as  much  or  more 
than  public  teaching.  We  cannot  understand  it  with- 
out making  elders  generic  in  the  purport  of  their  name 
and  giving  to  him  who  rules  only  and  to  him  who  both 
rules  and  teaches,  identified  as  they  are  in  jurisdiction, 
these  lists  of  qualification  which  belong  to  the  elders  or 
bishops  of  the  Bible. 

Teaching  and  preaching  are  not  precisely  the  same  in 
revelation  or  in  our  comments  tliereon,  else  the  sacred 
writers  are  chargeable  with  tautology  in  such  passages  as 
these  :  Matt.  iv.  23  ;  Acts  v.  42 ;  xv.  35.  There  must 
be,  therefore,  a  generic  sense  in  which  we  distribute 
these  functions  among  the  elders  we  generalize,  making 
the  specification  for  each  class  according  to  the  position 
or  the  calling.  The  main  distinction  is  in  the  propor- 
tion rather  than  in  the  kind,  and  so  we  may  say  the 
elder  who  lives  at  the  altar  preaches,  and  the  elder  who 
earns  his  bread,  like  private  and  unofficial  members,  in 
leo"itimate  business  of  a  secular  nature,  teaches.  We 
have  noticed  that  ruling  of  any  kind  implies  teaching 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        339 

of  some  kind  in  order  to  be  obeyed  intelligently  and 
with  a  willing  mind;  and  especially  it  must  be  so  in 
sacred  ruling,  which  consists  in  the  disciplinary  appli- 
cation of  the  divine  word  to  offences  and  the  ordinary 
direction  of  all  affairs  according  to  precepts  of  the  word 
or  to  logical  inferences  therefrom.  No  man  is  fit  to  be 
a  ruling  elder  who  is  not  at  all  "apt  to  teach." 

The  preacher  is  necessarily  a  ruler,  both  keys — that 
of  doctrine  and  that  of  discipline — being  intrinsically 
contained  in  the  authority  essential  to  preaching.  But 
ruling  to  the  whole  extent  of  spiritual  power  is  not 
more  essential  to  his  office  than  is  teaching  to  some 
extent  essential  to  the  office  of  ruling  elder.  The  pro- 
fessor in  his  chair  and  a  licentiate  as  probationer  in  the 
pulpit  may  teach  without  conception  of  ruling  authority 
in  his  lessons,  but  actual  office  in  the  Church  begins 
because  it  is  authorized  and  continued  by  the  manifesta- 
tion and  proof  of  such  a  beginning  in  lessons  of  prac- 
tical instruction  to  the  end.  Neither  admonition  nor 
rebuke,  nor  even  comfort,  can  be  administered  by  any 
elder  without  some  teaching ;  and  the  more  lucid  the 
process  of  discipline  is  made  to  the  understanding,  the 
more  effectual  it  is  upon  the  heart  and  the  life. 

It  is  in  this  view  of  inseparable  twining  together  at 
the  root  that  the  very  same  qualifications  are  alleged  of 
two  orders  in  office  covered  by  the  common  denomina- 
tion of  "  elder."  Two  inseparable  elements,  ruling  and 
teaching,  pervade  alike  these  branches  of  office,  which 
vary  in  proportion  only  and  the  formality  of  distinct 
ordination.  And  althouo;h,  as  we  view  the  full  devel- 
opment  now,  since  teaching  has  become  so  much  more 
the  conspicuous  and  important  element  in  consequence 
of  the  vast  accumulation  of  lore  both  for  and  against 


340  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT.     ■ 

Christiauity  which  the  teaching  elder  especially  must 
deal  with,  yet  the  true  history  and  the  last  analysis  will 
equally  constrain  us  to  find  at  the  basis  identity  enough 
to  be  called  by  the  same  denomination.  The  superven- 
ing function  which  came  upon  the  primitive  bench  when 
the  apostles  dropped  their  mantle  of  witnessing  upon 
it  calls  for  a  distinct  and  specific  ordination  to  herald 
the  commission  of  teaching  elders,  being  made  special 
representatives  of  a  world-wide  gospel,  belonging  to  the 
Church  at  large,  and  yet  authorized  to  remain  at  home, 
if  need  be,  in  joint  administration  of  rule  with  the  local 
governors  who  sat  with  them  under  one  and  the  same 
ordination  at  the  first. 

Nor  is  this  all.  There  is  a  space  between  the  pastor 
and  the  people  now  which  must  be  filled  with  author- 
ized teachers — men  who  are  able  and  willing  to  teach 
and  exhort  from  house  to  house,  able,  in  the  absence  or 
the  sickness  of  the  bishop,  to  lead  the  worship  of  a 
whole  congregation  in  a  social  way  of  pi'ayer  and  read- 
ing and  familiar  exhortation ;  else  no  congregation  can 
prosper  much  with  consolidated  strength  and  growth, 
and  no  pastor  can  long  endure  the  burden,  more  onerous 
every  year  as  the  flock  increases  and  the  culture  of  the 
world  advances.  The  man  who  rules  well  in  any  church 
must  be  "apt  to  teach"  in  conducting  Bible-classes, 
directing  Sunday-schools,  testing  the  soundness  of  in- 
struction there,  judging  even  what  the  preacher  says  to 
the  people,  with  meek  and  kind  discrimination  "  saying 
to  Archippus,  Take  heed  to  the  ministry  which  thou 
hast  received  in  the  Lord,  that  thou  fulfil  it."  As  a 
teacher  the  ruling  elder  may  perfectly  supply  the  church 
with  that  character  of  immense  utility  and  influence  in 
the   Methodist  polity  called    the   class-leader,   and   the 


QUALlFICATJOyS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        341 

whole  perplexity  with  which  most  churches  have  been 
tried  m  solving  the  problem  of  lay-preaching  would  be 
for  ever  precluded  in  our  system  if  only  we  appreciated 
the  ruhng  elder  in  the  true  meaning  of  his  office,  and 
selected  him  according  to  the  scriptural  qualifications  of 
an  elder  in  general. 

But  if  we  should  surrender  the  broad  exegesis  of  "apt 
to  teach"  that  makes  it  even  more  generic  than  "elder" 
which  it  qualifies,  we  would  not  give  up  the  genus  of 
this  name  m  sacred  use,  for  we  have  it  in  other  prin- 
ciples of  interpretation.     It  is  the  usage  of  Scripture  to 
say  things  of  a  whole  order  which  belong  strictly  to  the 
most  prominent  part  of  that  order.     Thus,  in   Dent, 
xxxiii.  8,  10,  it  is  said  respecting  the   whole  tribe  of 
l^evi   "They  shall  teach   Jacob  God's  judgments,  and 
Israel  his  law;  they  shall  put  incense  before  him,  and 
whole  burnt-offerings  on  his  altar."      And  so  we  are 
told  again,  when  Hezekiah  charged  them  on  a  particu- 
lar occasion,  he  thus  addressed  the  Levites  in  general  • 
"My  sons,  be  not  now  negligent,  for  the  Lord  hath 
chosen  you  to  stand  before  him,  to  serve  him,  and  that 
you  should  minister  to  him  and  burn  incense."     Here 
m  one  passage  the  Levites  in  general  are  said  to  have 
been  originally  appointed,  and  in  the  other  are  expressly 
charged  to  burn  incense.     And  yet  we  know  from  manv 
other  places  that  it  really  belonged  to  the  priests  only-1 
a  part  of  the  Levitical  family-to  burn  incense.  (See 
Ex    XXX.  7,  8 ;  Num.  xvi.  40 ;  1  Sam.  ii.  28.)     Surely 
such  a  logic  of  language  may  be  applied  to  the  whole 
family  of  New-Testament  elders.     What  seems  to  be 
predicated  in  one  place  of  all  elders  or  bishops,  that 
they  must  be  apt  to  teach,  may  well  be  understood  as 
only  a  distinctive  emphasis  placed  on  the  most  promi- 


342  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

nent  portion  of  the  eldership,  wliilst  others  in  the  office 
may  still  be  called  "elders"  just  as  fairly  as  the  priests 
were  Levites,  and  the  house  of  Aaron  belonged  to  the 
tribe  of  Levi. 

Rank  op  Ruling  Eldee. 

Assuming  the  genuine  sense  of  "  elder  "  and  the  war- 
rant for  his  office  from  Scripture,  expediency  and  his- 
torical tradition,"  we  must  regard  the  rank  of  ruling 
elder  as  equal  to  that  of  teaching  elder  in  representative 
power,  official  jurisdiction  and  permanent  tenure  of 
office. 

(1)  A  representative  is  made  by  the  gift  of  God  and 
will  of  the  people  represented.  A  certificate  of  his 
election  by  a  given  constituency  entitles  him  to  act  for 
his  people  as  the  peer  of  any  other  member  in  any 
assembly  that  is  called  to  act  for  a  part  or  the  whole 
visible  Church  denominated.  There  his  duties  are  un- 
defined in  advance,  though  circumscribed  within  certain 
constitutional  limits  and  performed  according  to  the  dic- 
tates of  his  own  conscience  as  well  as  the  true  interests 
of  his  people.  Their  will  has  made  him  more  than  a 
delegate  merely  who  is  to  be  actuated  precisely  by  the 
will  of  those  who  send  him.  A  true  representative 
combines  with  the  will  of  his  constituency  the  will  of 
God  in  his  conscience  and  the  superior  enlightenment  of 
his  own  mind  in  the  circumstances  of  any  case  which 
his  constituents  cannot  know  so  well.  And  thus  the 
action  of  a  representative  may  be  against  the  wishes  of 
his  people,  and  yet  be  faithful  and  true  to  their  best 
welfare  and  interest.  Factor  for  God  and  his  people 
and  himself  in  his  own  sincere  convictions,  his  work  is 
well  done.     And  thus  it  is  that  all  elders  of  the  Church, 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        343 

teaching  aud  ruling  alike,  are  true  representatives  of  the 
people,  though  the  latter  be  considered  more  immediate 
or  special  because  of  their  manifest  contact  with  the 
represented  in  secular  engagements  of  life. 

(2)  The  ruling  elder  is  an  officer  also  in  the  Church. 
And  this  is  something  more  than  representation. 
Beyond  the  suffrage  which  may  choose  him  to  stand 
indefinitely  for  the  interest  of  constituents,  he  has  a 
public  duty  to  perform  that  is  defined  and  specific,  and 
a  peculiar  formality  of  induction  prescribed  in  ordina- 
tion, also  functions  to  exercise  which  are  distinct  pre- 
rogatives, and  he  is  always  presumed  to  have  for  the 
place  a  special  fitness  or  gift  which  mere  election  can- 
not bestow.  His  official  functions,  like  those  of  the 
teaching  elder,  may  be  described  as  both  co-operative 
and  single.  In  co-operation  the  elders,  without  dis- 
tinction, exercise  jurisdiction  together,  and  govern  the 
Church  by  assemblies.  The  core  of  safe  representation 
has  always  been  plural :  no  one  man  was  ever  author- 
ized to  govern  the  Church.  Safety  is  in  the  multitude 
of  counsellors,  and  varieties  of  office,  occupation  and 
care  always  make  an  assembled  council  wiser  in  balan- 
cing and  juster  in  decision.  For  this  reason  one  house 
of  assembled  authority  is  better  than  two  ever  since 
apostles,  elders  aud  brethren  constituted  in  one  body  the 
first  council  at  Jerusalem. 

But  we  are  also  to  distinguish  the  power  of  order 
from  that  of  jurisdiction,  in  which  we  contemplate  the 
diversities  of  office  in  the  administration  of  each.  The 
teaching  elder,  by  the  power  of  order,  is  to  preach  the 
gospel  to  a  congregation  statedly,  and  to  dispense  the 
sacraments  of  baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper ;  to  exe- 
cute the  decisions  of  any  juridical  assembly  with  an 


344  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

authoritative  annoimcenieut,  like  that  of  James  in  the 
council  at  Jerusalem,  and  application  of  sentence  to  the 
censured,  which  is  by  word ;  and  also  to  carry  with  him  the 
commission  upon  him,  to  all  places,  without  any  formality 
of  renewal,  as  he  removes  from  place  to  place.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  ruling  elder,  by  the  power  of  order,  in 
representing  the  people,  does  all  that  the  people  do  as  re- 
quired in  consecrated  fellowship  to  instruct  the  ignorant, 
warn  the  unruly,  exhort  tlie  negligent,  comfort  the 
afflicted,  support  the  weak,  visit  the  sick,  restore  the 
fallen,  reconcile  the  variant  and  contend  for  the  truth, — 
all  this  under  the  perfect  obligation  of  office,  besides  the 
imperfect  obligation  of  charity,  in  common  upon  all 
members  alike,  whether  official  or  unofficial,  as  they 
have  opportunity.  The  defined  res])onsibility  of  office 
and  the  undefined  impulse  of  charity  are  the  double 
weight  of  duty  which  deserves  the  "double  honor" 
assigned  to  elders  who  "  rule  well." 

What  the  teaching  elder  does  by  the  poAver  of  his 
order  is  valid  without  a  vote  of  the  sessional  judicatory  ; 
what  the  ruling  elder  does  by  the  power  of  his  order  is 
likewise  valid  without  either  bench  or  bishop  to  sanction 
it ;  but  anything  done  by  either  of  these  elders,  without 
the  other,  which  belongs  to  their  joint  exercise  of  juris- 
diction is  not  valid,  but  null  and  void,  except  in  cases  of 
singular  necessity  when  cousistorial  advice  cannot  be 
had  and  the  transaction  must  wait  for  approval  after 
the  fact.  Such  exceptions,  however,  may  be  ventured 
only  by  the  elder  who  has  public  teaching  and  ruling 
united  in  his  office.  A  parochial  bisliop  may  confirm  or 
admit  a  person  to  sealing  ordinances  in  full  communion 
where  no  other  elder  is  at  hand  to  concur  and  none  to 
hinder,  and    the   exceptional    act  goes  up  to   a    higher 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        345 

judicatory  for  subsequent   review  and  silent   approba- 
tion  generally. 

If  the  teaching  elder  should  baptize  an  infant  irregu- 
larly, contrary  to  the  settled  order  of  the  Church  in  re- 
gard to  sponsors,  the  qualification  of  the  parents  or  other 
parties  that  present  it,  and  even  the  dissent  of  his  Ses- 
sion, the  baptism  is  valid    notwithstanding,  if  it  be  with 
scriptural  formula,  because  it  belongs  to  his  power  of 
order  distinctly  in  the  great  commission  ;  which  power 
of  jurisdiction  may  counsel,  but  not  override  or  annul. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  he  should  venture  to  excommuni- 
cate an  offender  of  his  own  motion,  without  the  vote  of 
a  church  Session,  the  act  is  null  and  void,  for  it  belongs 
to  that  power  of  jurisdiction  which   must  be  joint   in 
numbers.    The  kevs  of  the  kino-dom  in  our  hand  should 
open  with  more  facility  than  they  shut  the  door.     Philip 
alone  could  baptize  the  eunuch,  but  Paul  alone  would 
not  have  the  offender  at  Corinth  "  put  away  "  without 
process  "  together  "  and  j)unishment  "  inflicted  of  many." 
The  difference  of  capacity  in  the  distinction  thus  made  is 
not  scholastic  merely,  but  practical  and  analogous,  though 
as  old  as  the  Church  of  Scotland,  and  may  serve  at  once 
to  explain  the  interaction  of  elders,  adjust  the  modera- 
torship  of  assemblies  and  maintain  their  equality  of  rank 
in  the  exercise  of  the  highest  ecclesiastical  power  of  juris- 
diction.   (See  the  Second  Book  of  Discipline,  A.  d.  1578, 
ch.  i.  sees.  7,  8.) 

(3)  Permanency  of  tenure  is  the  third  particular  to  be 
noticed  in  the  parity  of  elders.  If  the  preaching  elder 
is  ordained  for  life  in  good  behavior,  so  is  the  ruling 
elder.  Both  are  officers  in  the  Church,  and  there  is  no 
mention  made  in  the  Bible  of  any  officer  being  appointed 
for  a  definite  term  of  years.     Both  are  rulers,  and  the 


346  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

original  bench  of  the  ecclesia  were  all  rulers,  and  per- 
haps rulers  only.  The  supervening  commission  to 
preach  the  gospel,  which  would  necessarily  select  the 
elders  best  qualified  for  such  a  function,  did  not  surely 
break  up  in  terms  the  life-tenure  of  a  residuary  portion 
that  remained  to  rule,  and  not  to  preach  ;  and  the  dis- 
tinct ordination  which  afterward  came  to  set  apart  the 
preaching  elder  from  the  people,  from  the  world  and 
from  his  ruling  -peers  upon  the  bench  could  not  with- 
draw from  these  the  term  of  good  behavior,  because 
their  function  in  the  Church  was  mixed  with  other 
legitimate  avocations  of  the  present  life.  Rather,  a 
life-tenure  would  more  certainly  remain  to  make  trial 
of  the  good  behavior,  and  make  it  better  and  best  by 
reason  of  experience,  and  gospel  institutions  now  to  be 
served  and  directed,  and  longer  intimacy  with  human 
nature  in  the  contact  of  religion  with  temporal  interests 
and  things  which  perish  in  the  using.  To  be  in  the 
world,  though  not  of  it,  to  be  not  taken  out  of  the 
world  by  premature  death  or  disability  or  sequestered 
use  of  talent  in  his  service  of  any  kind,  is  only  an 
answer  to  the  intercession  of  our  Lord  on  behalf  of 
his  disciples. 

The  distinction  made  of  late  years  between  the  office 
and  its  functions  is  hardly  intelligible  at  all.  What  is 
an  office  without  functions  to  be  performed?  There 
may  be  rotation  of  acting  by  turns  and  returning,  as 
there  anciently  was  among  the  classes  of  Levi  in  serving 
at  the  temple,  and  this  agreed  upon  among  themselves ; 
but  rotation  which  runs  out  indefinitely  and  looks  for  a 
restoration  of  place  and  time  to  suffrages  unpledged  and 
unpromised  cannot  be  called  rotation,  but  rather  extinc- 
tion of  office,  with  propriety  of  speech — so  far,  at  least, 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        347 

as  the  personal  functionary  is  concerned.  The  wheel  of 
time-service  in  this  way  must  evolve  at  length  either  a 
decadence  of  the  office  itself,  as  Dr.  John  Owen  two 
centuries  ago  warned  the  independent  churches  of  Eng- 
land it  would  do,  or  be  a  dead  letter  in  the  constitutional 
provision  which  allows  it.  The  latter  is  its  history  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland  for  eighteen  years  from  1560. 
When  the  office  of  ruling  elder  was  reinstated  at 
Geneva  by  John  Calvin,  it  was  with  notions  of  a  theo- 
cratical  constitution  for  that  little  republic  in  which  this 
was  done.  Regarded  as  a  municipal  as  well  as  an  eccle- 
siastical officer,  the  ruling  elder  was  to  be  chosen  every 
year  by  the  votes  of  a  civil  as  well  as  of  a  religious  con- 
stituency, blending  the  two  in  restoring  the  people  to 
active  power  in  the  Church  and  the  State  alike.  His 
disciple  John  Knox  transported  a  similar  miscellany 
from  Geneva  to  Edinburgh,  and  improved  upon  the 
Swiss  model  in  making  it  less  municipal  and  more 
Levitical  in  the  form  of  rotation  by  annual  changes. 
He  attempted  to  have  a  large  number  of  elders  selected 
to  start  with,  and  to  have  sections  in  the  sequel  to  act 
alternately  in  true  rotation,  and  the  alternation  to  be  de- 
termined either  among  themselves  or  by  the  people,  or 
both.  But  the  robust  independence  of  Scotch  Reform- 
ers began  their  traditional  antagonism  to  the  union  of 
Church  and  State  less  than  a  score  of  years  later  in 
producing  the  Second  Book  of  Discipline,  which  made 
the  office  of  ruling  elder  distinctly  and  entirely  spiritual, 
its  tenure  permanent  and  its  personal  functions  active 
and  continuous  until  superseded  by  death  or  by  for- 
feiture. This  was  the  standard  which  the  commis- 
sioners from  Scotland — Baillie,  Douglas,  Gillespie, 
Henderson  and  Rutherford — bore  to  the  Assembly  of 


348  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Divines  at  Westminster  in  the  century  following,  and 
which,  after  long  and  exhaustive  discussion  there,  was 
adopted  with  but  slight  modification  and  engrossed  as 
the  Directory  of  Presbyterianism  throughout  English 
Christendom. 

Our  American  Assemblies  copied  that  Directory, 
adopting  as  its  formula  in  the  "  Form  of  Government " 
these  words  :  "  The  offices  of  ruling  elder  and  deacon 
are  both  perpetual,  and  cannot  be  laid  aside  at  pleasure. 
No  person  can  be  divested  of  either  office  but  by  deposi- 
tion." The  continental  Presbyterianism  of  Europe  prac- 
tically tends  to  the  same  consolidation,  for  the  popular 
election  becomes  a  formality  of  but  little  interest,  and 
less  attention,  from  time  to  time,  and  results  with  few 
exceptions,  in  a  lifelong  return  of  the  same  individuals 
chosen.  The  Church  of  Holland  has,  moreover,  a 
grand  consistory  in  which  the  functionary  who  has 
not  been  re-elected  may  sit  in  council  with  acting  elders 
to  deliberate  and  vote  on  certain  measures  of  special  im- 
portance, thus  perpetuating  the  official  tenure  in  a  quali- 
fied way.  The  Reformed  Church  of  France  (Huguenot) 
adopted  in  their  "  Discipline  "  the  seventh  canon,  thus  : 
"  The  office  of  elders  and  deacons,  as  it  is  now  in  use 
among  us,  is  not  perpetual ;  yet  because  changes  are  not 
commodious  tiiey  siiall  be  exhorted  to  continue  in  their 
offices  as  long  as  they  can,  and  they  shall  not  lay  them 
down  without  having  first  obtained  leave  from  their 
churches." 

The  recent  innovation  upon  our  practice  adopted  by 
the  Northern  Assembly  of  the  Presbyterian  Church, 
that  authorizes  a  particular  church  to  choose  the  ruling 
elders  for  a  triennial  tenure  only,  probably  will  gravi- 
tate before  long  in  the  same  way  as  in  the  older  conn- 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        349 

tries,  because  the  prevailing  reason  for  its  adoption  has 
been  the  newness  of  our  country,  the  paucity  of  material 
for  eldership — in  new  settlements  especially — and  the 
tentative  process  through  which  they  pass  in  the  com- 
ing and  going  so  much  of  suitable  persons  for  office. 
Doubtless  the  change  was  also  a  compromise  of  opposite 
opinions  about  the  nature,  need  and  warrant  for  this 
office  itself  in  our  economy  of  representation.  But 
time  will  try  it  well.  Fair  experiment  of  time-service, 
which  seems  to  have  come  like  a  patch  on  our  constitu- 
tion, will  work  out  eventually,  it  is  hoped,  more  homo- 
geneity than  ever  on  this  pivotal  point  of  Presbyterian 
polity.  Especially,  seeing  the  great  majority  of  Pres- 
byterian churches  at  the  North,  and  all  of  them  at  the 
South,  decline  the  experiment  and  cleave  to  the  West- 
minster Directory  in  organization  and  practice,  we  may 
hope  that  the  generations  following  will  combine  to 
eliminate  the  incongruous  element  from  our  system. 

The  periodical  return  of  election  for  elders  not  only 
on  the  one  hand  works  out  a  disparagement  of  rank, 
but  on  the  other  hand  also  an  avoidance  of  discipline  as 
an  ordinance  of  God  which  is  to  be  administered  by  a 
representative  tribunal.  The  ruling  elders,  composing  a 
great  majority  of  officers  on  the  bench  in  primary  assem- 
blies of  judicature,  if  elected  every  three  years  by  the 
people,  naturally  feel  themselves  to  be  amenable  to  the 
voters  more  than  to  their  peers  in  the  judicatory  itself, 
and  so  the  oversight  of  the  Session  in  ordering  the 
retirement  of  an  unfaithful  or  an  unacceptable  elder 
according  to  the  old  provision  of  the  "  Form  "  (chap, 
xiii.)  is  made  useless,  and  such  discipline  passes  from 
the  book  to  the  ballot,  and  from  a  judicial  process 
against  which  the  aggrieved   might  appeal  to  a  silent 


350  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

conspiracy,  it  might  be,  from  which  there  can  be  no 
redress  or  appeal,  however  undeserved  and  severely  felt 
may  be  the  condemnation  of  non-election  for  another 
period. 

Repeated  election  is  not  required  to  make  or  to  keep 
a  true  representative  of  the  people,  much  less  an  officer 
over  them,  called  of  God,  and  least  of  all  a  judicial 
officer  for  God,  as  the  elder  is.  It  is  enough  to  have 
been  elected  once  by  their  untrammelled  suffrage  when 
he  remains  one  of  themselves  in  his  occupation,  affinities 
and  sympathies ;  and  in  the  very  nature  of  its  exercise 
the  office  to  which  they  have  chosen  him  keeps  him  in- 
timately conversant  with  their  wishes  and  influence. 
The  pastor  himself  is  a  representative  of  the  people, 
not  only  as  he  too  is  a  ruler  in  the  spiritual  episcopacy 
of  his  charge,  but  also  as  he  is  a  preacher  by  the  great 
commission  which  at  the  Ascension  came  as  a  supreme 
behest  upon  the  apostolic  and  catholic  body  of  Christ. 
Yet  this  double  representation  in  the  bishop,  calls  for 
only  one  election  by  the  people,  and  surely  his  coequal 
in  one  capacity  should  be  settled  in  one  election.  In- 
deed, representative  men  grow  up  to  be  such  among  the 
people  by  habitation  alone  and  by  the  tacit  regard  and 
deference  rendered  to  them  in  the  community  for  their 
wisdom,  virtue  and  enterprise,  and  they  are  called 
representative  in  the  common  use  of  language,  without 
formal  candidacy  or  voting  at  all,  though,  of  course, 
made  official  by  suffrage  and  induction. 

This  acquiescent  way  of  choosing  representatives  in 
silent  assent  has  come  down  to  us  from  a  remote  antiq- 
uity of  our  faith  and  is  quite  as  old  as  work  at  the 
tabernacle  in  the  Wilderness  under  the  direction  of 
Moses.      The  announcement  of  their  leader  that  God 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        351 

had  called  and  qualified  any  one  for  any  work  was 
enough  to  engage  the  people  in  acceptance  and  obedi- 
ence without  a  word  of  canvass  or  challenge  on  their 
part.  When  "  Moses  said  unto  the  children  of  Israel, 
See,  the  Lord  hath  called  by  name  Bezaleel,"  etc., 
"  then  wrought  Bezaleel  and  Aholiab,  and  every  wise- 
hearted  man,  in  whom  the  Lord  put  wisdom  and  under- 
standing to  know  how  to  work  for  the  service  of  the 
sanctuary,  according  to  all  that  the  Lord  commanded." 
Ex.  XXX vi.  1.  Such  was  the  typical  beginning  of  elec- 
tions to  the  work  of  office  in  the  Church  :  a  nomination 
of  the  man,  a  description  of  his  fitness,  the  kind  of 
work,  and,  above  all,  the  evidence  of  a  divine  call  to  it, 
were  the  whole  of  suffrage  at  first  by  way  of  silent 
assent.  In  subsequent  ages  of  old  the  main  ecclesias- 
tical feature,  a  ruling  eldership  in  every  synagogue,  was 
doubtless  appointed  with  tokens  of  approbation  by  the 
unofficial  members  in  diversified  modes,  according  to  the 
best  authorities ;  but  there  is  not  a  trace  to  be  found  in  all 
Jewish  antiquities  of  repeated  elections  for  the  continu- 
ance of  the  same  individual  elders.  We  hinge  on  that 
ecclesia,  we  copy  from  that  model.  The  glories  of 
Pentecost  intervening  stamp  our  New-Testament  elder- 
ship with  the  image  and  superscription  of  gifts  from 
God  as  the  prime  qualification  for  candidates.  And  is 
it  because  God  has  withdrawn  all  evidence  of  this  that 
any  particular  church  will  reverse  the  nomination  or 
try,  and  try  again,  to  find  it  continued  and  safe?  His 
gifts  and  calling  are  without  repentance,  and  why  should 
we  make  room  for  ours  in  vacating  places  by  experi- 
ment? 

It   is   also   proper  that   an  elder's  judicial  function 
should  be  commensurate  in  time  with  the  duration  of 


352  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

discipline  as  it  is  properly  administered  in  any  given 
case.  Difficult  and  important  cases  are  often  prolonged 
indefinitely,  not  only  in  the  stages  of  process  through 
which  they  are  drawn,  but  in  the  patient  waiting  of 
elders  to  see  fruits  meet  for  repentance  under  the  inflic- 
tion of  censure  with  a  view  to  restore  tlie  offender  to 
confidence  and  communion  or  to  cast  him  away  as  a 
reprobate.  The  writer  was  familiar  with  one  case  in 
pastoral  life  which  lasted  over  thirty  years,  and  only  the 
death  of  the  offender  ended  the  importunity  with  which 
he  tried  to  regain  a  standing  in  fellowship  just  as  often 
as  a  new  member,  whether  bishop  or  elder,  was  added 
to  the  Session.  His  restoration  at  any  time  would  have 
been  discreditable  to  the  communion,  exchanging,  as  he 
did,  one  sin  for  another  as  age  advanced  and  as  the  fla- 
grancy  of  the  original  crime  was  forgotten.  Yet  a  rotary 
eldership,  so  called,  witiiout  tradition  of  memory  to  the 
contrary  withstanding,  would  probably  have  rolled  him 
in,  whilst  the  old  men  of  lifelong  tenure  in  office  who 
remembered  the  offence,  the  impenitence,  the  shifting 
hardness  and  the  failure  of  conferences  to  convict  of  sin 
would  still  obstruct  the  readmission  without  more  evi- 
dence of  a  saving  change. 

But  church  discipline  is  delicate,  also,  as  it  is  chronic. 
To  the  tardiness  of  wise  and  prudent  consideration  and 
the  indefinite  prolongation  of  a  charitable  hope  must  be 
joined  a  secrecy  which  the  reiteration  of  popular  elec- 
tions would  spoil.  The  canvass  for  new  elders  must 
open  up  the  proceedings  of  old  elders  and  submit  to  a 
virtual  arbitration  by  the  peo})le  what  is  sacred  to  the 
bench,  and  cannot  appeal  to  such  a  constituency  for  justi- 
fication without  annihilating  that  true  confessional  where 
a  sinner  gets  the  only  absolution  that  man  may  dispense 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        353 

iu  judicial  form.  Conscience  will  not  stand  the  gaze 
of  publicity  without  induration  ;  judges  will  not  bear 
the  scrutiny  which  winnows  their  motives  and  unveils 
their  conferences  and  compels  them  to  spread  the  knowl- 
edge of  offences  in  order  to  justify  themselves  and  secure 
a  continuance  in  office.  Nor  will  the  best  men  fitted 
for  this  high  spiritual  office  allow  themselves  to  be 
chosen  or  accept  after  an  actual  election  if  they  are  not 
allowed  the  benefit  of  exjjerience  assured  to  them  in  the 
tenure  of  eldership  witliout  returning  to  the  people  for 
a  verdict  before  their  crudities  are  cured  or  their  service 
is  accomplished. 

There  is,  moreover,  a  comparative  injustice  to  ruling 
elders  in  being  made  liable  to  loss  of  office  by  short 
terms  of  tenure.  They  are  the  local  governors  of  the 
Church,  adapted,  we  may  presume,  to  the  peculiar  char- 
acter and  circumstances  of  the  particular  congregation 
where  they  rule,  and,  it  might  be,  unfit  for  ruling  any- 
where else  than  the  congregation  where  they  belong. 
When  dropped  in  the  periodical  return  of  election,  they 
must  abide  there,  divested  of  office  probably  for  lifetime, 
without  alternative  and  the  possibility,  perhaps,  of  ever 
knowing  why  the  votei's  have  set  them  aside.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  teaching  elder  belongs  to  the  whole 
Clmrch.  When  superseded  in  one  place,  he  goes  to 
another  with  a  plenitude  of  office  which  no  mere  election 
may  vacate.  For  the  power  to  rule  is  intrinsic  to  the 
ministry  of  the  word,  clothed  as  it  is  in  authority  for 
all  the  varieties  of  use  and  application — a  sentence  and 
a  sword  as  well  as  a  defence  and  an  edification.  Here, 
then,  is  obvious  inequality  of  ruling  office.  Upon  the 
one  repeated  election  may  bring  irreparable  dispossession ; 
on  the  other  it  only  shifts  the  officer  to  another  field — it 

23 


354  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

may  be  of  more  advantage  than  ever — in  the  exercise 
of  authority  and  influence.  This  upsets  the  foundation 
of  our  polity,  and  consistency  would  require  two  houses 
instead  of  one  wherever  the  judicatories  above  a  Session 
consist  of  equal  numbers  fr(Kn  the  two  classes  of  elders, 
bishops  in  the  upper  house  and  laymen — called  "  elders  " 
— in  the  lower,  and  the  whole  denominated  "conven- 
tion "  instead  of  "  assembly." 

Duties   of  Euling   Elders. 

These  are  to  be  drawn  mostly  from  the  qualifications 
enumerated  in  Scripture,  and  much  from  the  visible  cir- 
cumstances of  the  Church  and  notable  exigences  in  her 
annals.  Being  the  main  office  of  her  government  under 
all  dispensations,  there  must  be  some  accommodation  to 
changes  in  its  nature — an  elastic  essence  in  its  functions 
which  resembles  expediency  alone.  Having  been  patri- 
archal, Jewish,  Christian,  Catholic  and  Ileformed  by 
turns,  and  in  such  succession  eternal  as  the  principle  of 
representation  itself — w^ithout  which  no  government  of 
men  could  endure  in  Church  or  in  State — the  very  occlu- 
sion with  which  it  has  had  to  run  through  mountain- 
obstructions  even  to  this  day  shows  how  pervading 
and  rebounding  it  is  and  the  outcome  of  its  destiny 
must  be.  The  expansive  usefulness  of  an  eldership 
in  government,  however,  must  embrace  both  the  teach- 
ing and  the  ruling  officers  of  this  name,  each  of  them 
representative,  and  the  latter  immediately  and  espe- 
cially so. 

I.  The  first  duty,  therefore,  of  a  ruling  elder  is  to 
represent  the  people  in  membership  by  an  example  of 
performing  in  Christian  duty  what  is  enjoined  by  the 
word  of  God  or  by  instructions  of  the  Church  derived 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING   ELDERS.        355 

therefrom.  He  directs  mainly  by  leading  and  rules 
mostly  by  submitting  a  pattern  of  obedience  in  him- 
self to  the  doctrine  of  Christ  and  laws  of  a  spiritual 
kingdom.  He  is  to  be  the  empiiatic  man  in  serving 
if  he  would  be  acknowledy-ed  as  a  chief  man  among; 
the  rulers  at  the  sanctuary.  To  visit  the  sick,  to  com- 
fort the  afflicted,  to  receive  the  stranger,  to  admonish  the 
wayward  and  to  support  the  weak  he  is  bound  by  the 
distinctively  double  obligation  of  charity  and  office. 
The  indefinite  impulse  of  the  one  and  the  definite  force 
of  the  other  combine  to  make  a  ruling  elder  the  eminent 
Christian. 

II.  He  is  to  be  an  intermediate  teacher  between  the 
bishop  and  the  people,  apt  to  teacii  in  a  sphere  of  in- 
struction which,  though  not  exclusive,  is  practically 
wider  than  that  of  the  pastor  himself.  It  was  a  dis- 
tinctive province  of  the  elders  in  every  synagogue  of 
God  while  tlie  temple-service  endured  in  Israel  to  pro- 
vide instruction  of  families, — children  and  vouth  in  all 
the  rudiments  of  religion,  male  and  female,  servants  and 
handmaids — whilst  the  male  head  of  the  family  would 
seek  instruction  from  the  priests  at  the  temple,  besides, 
only  thrice  in  the  year.  The  family  institute  accord- 
ingly descends  as  a  trust  to  the  bench  of  elders  through 
all  generations  to  enlighten  it  and  cherish  within  it  a 
safe  administration  of  the  family  covenant  by  directing 
the  parents  to  teach  their  children  the  fear  of  God  and 
love  of  Christ,  protecting  this  tuition  from  the  com- 
munism which  would  toss  it  out  and  leave  it  in  schools 
that  would  engross  it  all  and  set  the  natural  sponsors 
free  from  sacred  obligation.  The  Sunday-school,  there- 
fore, must  be  dominated  mainly  by  ruling  elders,  who 
will  either  teach  the  classes  themselves  or  appoint  the 


356  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

teachers  they  approve  to  do  it  rightly  and  with  the 
help  of  sound  and  choice  and  adequate  literature.  Bible- 
classes,  also,  and  choirs,  and  everything,  in  short,  belong- 
ing to  the  province  of  catechetics  in  its  range  and  import, 
should  recognize  the  authority  of  elders  and  yield  to  the 
guidance  of  their  consistorial  assembly. 

This  plurality  in  private  and  social  ministration  of 
course  includes  the  teaching  elder,  who  is  bishop,  the 
first  among  equals  in  all  the  varieties  of  instruction,  but  it 
must  not  engross  all  his  functions,  for  beyond  theirs  he 
preaches  the  gospel,  administers  the  sacraments  and  earns 
his  bread  with  exclusive  franchise  in  exchanging  spiritual 
things  for  carnal.  Only  in  extremities  of  need  like  that 
imagined  by  Luther  in  supposition  are  the  people  author- 
ized to  make  a  ruling  elder  be  their  preacher  without  reg- 
ular and  distinct  ordination.  Yet  less  than  that  extremity 
would  be  sufficient  to  justify  a  certain  approximation 
which  is  expressly  mentioned  in  the  Form  of  Govern- 
ment, ch.  xxi.,  Avhere  either  "  elders  or  deacons  "  may 
perform  a  becoming  service  in  "  vacant  congregations 
assembling  for  public  worship."  Even  a  partial  vacancy 
in  the  pulpit,  when  the  preacher  is  sick  or  absent,  would 
fairly  invite  a  ruling  elder  to  lead  the  public  worship  in 
reading,  prayer,  praise  and  exhortation. 

III.  He  holds  in  joint  deliberation  the  keys  of  ad- 
mission or  exclusion  in  discriminating  the  worthiness  of 
those  who  seek  to  enter  into  full  communion  and  the  un- 
worthiness  of  those  who  forfeit  the  privilege  by  misde- 
meanor and  impenitence.  Investigations  to  be  made  in 
pursuance  of  this  duty  are  specially  the  task  of  ruling 
elders  in  their  peculiar  episcopacy.  In  immediate  con- 
tact with  the  world  as  they  are,  and  penetrating  on  the 
walks  of  business,  where  all  opportunities  are  available 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.        357 

to  their  insight,  the  mask  of  vice  and  proof  of  virtue, 
they  are  best  qualified  for  judging  human  nature  as  it 
must  be  known  to  ensure  a  safe  and  righteous  use  of 
the  keys — that  opening  and  shutting  in  the  house  of 
Christ  which  is  given  to  representative  authorities  in 
his  name.  Agents  at  the  points  of  contact  between  the 
Church  and  the  workl  are  the  best  judges  of  both. 
Only  an  active  participation  in  the  average  interests 
of  both  will  be  competent  to  balance  fairly  and  dis- 
tinguish wisely  the  characteristics  of  true  Christianity 
in  the  present  life.  The  "  Reformed "  branch  of  the 
great  Keformation  in  Europe  was  known  for  its  ethical 
purity  throughout  all  Christendom  by  reason  of  the  dis- 
cipline which  ruling  elders  conducted  when,  without  this 
feature  of  polity,  morals  languished  on  every  side,  the 
best  confessions  were  tarnished  and  the  reproach  of  men 
hindered  the  progress  and  spread  of  faith. 

IV.  Ruling  elders  are  the  main  judicial  element  of 
the  Presbyterian  system — the  mitre  as  well  as  the  keys 
resting  on  them  to  represent  the  people.  They  are 
primary  courts  or  Sessions  where  they  are  in  the  aggre- 
gate a  vast  majority  of  officers  to  exercise  original  juris- 
diction for  the  whole  Church  in  judging  wisely  for  the 
smaller  part,  and  beyond  these  lower  judicatories  to  con- 
stitute an  equal  representation  in  the  higher  and  highest 
tribunals  assembled,  which  hold  appellate  jurisdiction 
and  consult  for  the  widest  interests  of  the  visible  Church 
on  earth.  It  is  their  special  duty,  therefore,  to  study  tlie 
constitution  and  the  polity  of  the  Church  with  constant 
care,  and  to  teach  the  generations  while  they  pass  how  to 
behave  themselves  in  the  house  of  God  and  how  to  pre- 
vent offences  which  may  rise  in  the  gradations  of  review 
or  appeal  to  the  greatest  notoriety  of  scandal,  and  may 


358  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

cause  the  weak  to  stumble  and  the  enemy  to  blaspheme. 
The  preponderating  power  in  a  Presbyterian  system 
should  certainly  be  well  informed,  and  not  be  led 
blindly  by  any  minority,  however  educated  it  may 
be.  The  vigor  of  common  sense  must  be  enlightened, 
the  majority  vote  must  be  wisely  directed,  the  responsi- 
bility of  elders  must  be  sensible  in  proportion  to  its 
weight  and  cultured  well  in  proportion  to  its  inde- 
pendence. 

V.  Their  duty  is  to  guard  the  pulpit  also  and  advise 
the  incumbent  there  with  respectful  heed  in  regard  to 
the  exercise  even  of  his  own  power  of  order,  without 
arrogating  that  power  to  themselves  at  all  or  subjecting 
it  to  the  judicatory  which  they  compose  in  great  part 
numerically.  In  dispensing  all  the  ordinances  of  a  par- 
ticular church  they  are  to  be  counsellors  and  assistants 
of  the  pastor,  upholding  his  hands,  extending  his  work, 
devising  ways  and  means  and  times  and  places  for  the 
ministrations  belonging  to  his  order.  It  is  their  duty, 
also,  rather  than  the  deacon's,  to  distribute  the  elements 
in  sacramental  communion  to  the  worthy  receivers,  be- 
cause they  are  presumed  to  know  best  who  these  are, 
having  acted  authoritatively  in  aduiittiug  them  to  fel- 
lowship and  continuing  a  watchful  care  of  them  in  that 
spiritual  oversight  which  belongs  to  them  jointly  with 
the  pastor. 

This  guardianship  and  supplementary  assistance  to 
the  sacred  desk  constituted  the  original  burden  of  an 
elder's  office.  For  the  pulpits  at  the  beginning,  in  Old- 
Testament  times,  were  all  comparatively  vacant '  and 
trusted  in  procuring  supplies  to  the  wisdom  and  faith- 
fulness of  ruling  elders.  Prophets,  priests  and  Levites 
in  general  were  the  supply  to  be  had  for  conducting 


QUALIFICATIONS  OF  RULING  ELDERS.       359 

public  worship  and  instruction  at  the  synagogue.  An 
individual  fixedness  of  the  pastoral  tie  belongs  to  the 
Christian  era.  Any  one  that  came  along  "in  the  spirit 
and  demonstration  of  a  prophet"  would  be  invited  to 
hold  forth  in  teaching  or  exhortation  only  by  the  elders. 
Levites  were  domiciled  at  convenient  distances  to  be 
sent  for  by  these  elders  when  gifted  strangers  failed  to 
offer  themselves  or  to  appear  at  the  proper  time.  And 
this  primitive  agency  remains  a  prei'ogative  of  ruling 
elders.  When  a  particular  church  becomes  vacant  by 
the  removal  of  a  teaching  elder  from  the  bishop's  place, 
the  body  of  that  joint  authorily  which  sits  on  the  adja- 
cent bench  (as  it  used  to  be,  in  the  literal  sense,  also) 
rise  up  to  the  task  of  obtaining  another  bishop.  They 
are  naturally  and  reasonably  and  prescriptively  the 
"committee  of  supplies,"  and  it  is  only  disparagement 
to  them  and  unseemly  disorder  for  a  congregation  to 
raise  a  committee  of  the  kind  by  promiscuous  nomina- 
tion of  members  who  have  no  such  official  responsibility 
on  their  shoulders. 

These  main  varieties  of  duty  express  the  central  im- 
portance of  this  feature  in  visible  organization.  Orig- 
inal, continued  and  perpetual  as  it  is  under  a  diversity 
of  names  when  its  functions  are  divided,  but  always  the 
same  denomination  when  these  are  united,  we  cannot 
overestimate  the  value  of  this  office.  Nor  should  we 
ever  be  in  haste  to  organize  a  new  church  before  finding 
some  one  or  two  at  least  of  the  people  fairly  qualified 
for  the  ruling  eldership.  A  church  may  live  without  a 
bishop,  but  not  without  an  elder.  It  may  thrive  in 
numbers  and  usefulness  without  stated  preaching,  but 
not  without  being  led  and  regulated  by  a  plurality  of 
ruling  elders. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  DEACONS. 

KEEPING  in  view  the  continuity  of  the  Church 
through  both  Testaments  of  revealed  religion,  and 
especially  that  visible  ecclesia,  or  synagogue,  which 
united  in  its  ordinances  of  worship  all  that  was  sacred 
and  spiritual  in  the  tabernacle  or  temple  of  old,  after 
Christ  came  in  the  flesh  and  the  glorious  ministration 
of  the  Spirit  came  to  endow  his  disciples  and  apostles, 
we  shall  more  definitely  understand  the  process  by  which 
appellative  words  were  made  into  proper  and  official 
names.  And  no  one  of  these,  we  should  observe,  has 
had  an  application  to  persons  generally  so  much  as 
"deacon."  The  word  dtdxovoQ,  both  male  and  female 
in  its  gender,  is  given  to  every  officer,  from  the  supreme 
head  himself  to  the  lowest  functionary  in  his  kingdom. 
It  is  only  when  catalogued  with  other  names  of  New- 
Testament  office  that  it  is  defined  and  special.  In  its 
etymological  sense  it  signifies  a  hasty  and  dust-covered 
messenger — one  who  runs  on  his  errand  with  prompt- 
ness and  energy.  It  is  explained,  also,  by  the  synonyms 
which  come  near  its  meaning.  JouXo;;,  "a  slave,"  is 
one  of  these,  meaning  a  lower  and  less  free  obedience. 
depdinov  is  another,  meaning  attendance  on  a  superior 
with  free  volition  and  kind  intent.  And  still  another 
is '  YmjpizTj!;,  one  who  does  service  to  a  superior,  as  a 

360 


THE  DEACONS.  361 

rower  does  in  obedience  to  a  marine  commander.  All 
these  different  terms,  expressing  ministry,  contribute 
their  meaning  more  or  less  to  the  "  deacon,"  added  to 
the  sense  of  urgent  business  in  duty  which  this  word 
itself  imports. 

But  the  question  to  be  asked  here  is,  "By  what 
name  in  Greek  does  the  diaconate  of  the  Old-Testament 
ecclesia  descend  to  the  New-Testament  vocabulary  of 
office?"  If  we  should  venture  a  piiori  to  answer,  it 
would  be  an  antithetic  word  to  nptcr^orepoc — namely, 
vecozepot,  or  veaviaxui.  Both  of  these  words  for  "young 
men  "  are  used  in  performing  deacon's  work,  according 
to  the  practice  of  the  synagogue,  in  quickly  removing 
from  a  religious  meeting  the  dead  bodies  of  Ananias 
and  Sapphira.  Acts  v.  It  is  worthy  of  special  notice 
that  the  next  chapter  (Acts  vi.)  opens  with  a  reorganiza- 
tion of  the  deacon's  office  in  order  to  suit  the  fulness  of 
time  in  gathering  the  Christian  Church.  The  deaconship 
of  the  synagogue  originally  seems  to  have  been  local  and 
narrow,  yet  various  in  duty,  embracing  all  the  menial 
employment  of  the  sacristan,  or  sexton,  in  later  times, 
along  with  the  collection  and  disbursement  of  alms. 
Each  synagogue  had  its  own  deacon  or  deacons,  and 
of  course  expended  the  alms  collected  therein  upon 
its  own  poor ;  and  synagogues  of  the  Dispersion  were 
accustomed  to  send  alms  to  Jerusalem  for  the  festive 
occasions,  besides  the  relief  reserved  for  the  poor  of 
their  own  respective  localities.  Hence  the  surprise  and 
vexation  of  the  Hellenistic  Jews  at  seeing  their  widows 
neglected  at  Jerusalem,  where  the  overplus  of  their  own 
alms  had  been  carried  for  generations. 

The  apostles,  having  attracted  a  multitude  of  disci- 
ples to  their  ministry  and  hearing  this  murmur  of  the 


362  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

strangers,  at  once  comprehended  the  necessities  of  tlie 
situation — that  an  obligation  rested  on  themselves  to 
provide  an  impartial  and  adequate  supply  for  the  clam- 
orous need.  Yet  such  affairs  were  incompatible  with 
their  own  supreme  vocation  to  pray  and  to  preach  the 
gospel.  They  did  not  set  aside  tiie  "young  men"  who 
had  been  so  instantly  at  hand  in  the  previous  chapter  to 
do  a  deacon's  service,  nor  did  they  supersede,  with  any 
intimation,  the  beneficent  machinery  of  previous  time  as 
now  and  henceforth  unsuitable  for  the  vast  enlargement 
of  the  Church ;  but  they  called  upon  the  discipled  mul- 
titude around  them  to  choose  a  band  of  seven  commis- 
sioners, honest  and  spiritual  and  wise  men,  "  whom  we 
may  appoint  over  this  business" — that  is,  to  superin- 
tend the  arduous  work  of  benevolence  in  that  and  all 
similar  exigences  of  the  time.  These  were  not  called, 
then  or  afterward,  "  deacons  "  at  all,  but  "  the  seven  ;" 
six  of  them  were  Grecians  by  name,  and  all  of  them  were 
above  the  level  of  mere  almoners  in  retail  and  far  beyond 
the  minor  activities  of  a  deacon  as  inherited  from  the 
synagogue  of  old.  Two  at  least  of  these  phenomenal 
"seven"  belonged  to  the  ministry  of  gifts  and  became 
illustrious  confessors  in  subsequent  history — Philip,  in 
his  promotion  to  the  work  of  a  great  evangelist,  and 
Stephen,  to  die  with  angelic  face  and  defensive  elo- 
quence on  his  lips,  the  proto-apologist  and  proto-raartyr 
of  Christendom. 

Yet  indirectly  and  really  that  superior  quality  of  the 
seven  who  were  chosen  for  an  emergency  at  first,  to 
superintend  the  work  of  deacons  and  assist  as  well  as 
relieve  the  apostles  in  their  momentous  engagement  of 
duty,  came  upon  the  office  of  deacon  with  ennobling 
effect — not  to  make  them  preachers,  for  the  main  reason 


THE  DEACONS.  363 

of  the  appointment  was  that  the  apostles  might  give 
themselves  exclusively  to  that  commission  along  with 
prayer;  not  to  be  ranked,  perhaps,  on  any  plane  of 
office  in  the  ministry  of  orders,  teaching,  ruling  or 
serving;  for  the  examples  we  have  mentioned  above 
would  indicate  a  transitory  exercise  of  preternatural 
gifts  which  belonged  to  that  age  alone.  This  was  the 
opinion  of  Chrysostom.  The  solemnity  of  setting  them 
apart  with  prayer  and  the  laying  on  of  hands  would,  of 
course,  identify  them  to  some  extent  with  the  order  of 
deacons  over  which  they  were  appointed  to  look  and  act 
as  directors  for  the  time  being.  The  impress  of  that  in- 
cidental direction  would  remain  to  dignify  the  deacon, 
making  the  generic  name  an  honorable  designation  fit  for 
any  office,  however  exalted.  And  the  stamp  of  this  re- 
organized importance  may  be  seen  perpetually  afterward, 
in  the  development  of  this  office  by  the  pastoral  Epistles 
of  inspiration,  as  "  holding  the  mystery  of  the  faith  in  a 
pure  conscience,"  and  also  by  the  subsequent  course  of 
history,  in  separating  from  a  deaconship  the  cares  of  a 
sexton  and  the  humble  occupations  of  a  sub-deacon. 

Notwithstanding  all  this  elevation  and  progress  of  the 
office,  however,  it  lingered  among  the  associations  of 
miuor  duty.  Even  above  middle  age  of  life  was  chosen, 
as  well  as  youth,  and  "  deacons  "  were  to  be  "  proved  " 
first,  and  they  might  be  husbands  and  fathers  and  must 
be  "grave"  as  elders  in  character  and  demeanor.  They 
were  minor  officials  in  grade,  and  by  the  primitive  writers, 
as  we  have  seen,  were  often  called  Levites,  on  account  of 
a  miscellaneous  employment  in  sacred  things,  and  the 
miscellany  of  years  in  age.  We  have  in  1  Pet.  v.  5  a 
striking  antithesis  between  elder  and  deacon  carried  on, 
though  partially  hidden  by  the  authorized  translation  : 


364  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

"Likewise,  ye  youuger,  submit  yourselves  unto  tlie 
elder."  This  "youuger"  caunot  meau  the  people,  iu 
distinction  from  their  officers,  else  the  clause  immediately 
subjoined  ("  Yea,  all  of  you  be  subject  one  to  another  ") 
would  be  tautology.  The  appellatives  "youuger"  and 
"  young  men  "  were  undoubtedly  tropical  of  minor  office 
in  the  old  ecclesia.  Our  Lord  himself,  in  Luke  xxii.  26, 
has  indicated  this  :  "  He  that  is  greatest  among  you,  let 
him  be  as  the  younger."  The  b/usc^cov  in  this  clause  we 
see  interpreted  in  the  next  clause  by  the  6  'jyoojusi^o^, 
which  is  a  familiar  name  for  the  hi"her  office  of  the 
Church — "  and  he  that  is  chief,  as  he  that  doth  serve." 
In  this  way  the  contention  between  Dr.  Mosheim  and 
Dr.  Miller  may  be  composed  without  an  error  on  either 
side.  It  is  obviously  credible  to  say  with  the  former 
that  the  record  in  the  first  verses  of  Acts  vi.  is  that  of 
an  addition  of  overseers,  at  least,  to  an  order  of  office 
already  existing;  and  to  say,  with  the  latter,  it  is  the 
first  institution  of  this  office  in  the  Christian  Church. 
Instead  of  being  the  origination,  absolutely,  it  is  a  re- 
construction, of  the  deaconship  on  a  pressing  occasion 
by  the  appointment  of  popular  and  gifted  men  to  superin- 
tend the  work  of  deacons  and  to  elevate  their  office  above 
the  menial  activities  of  the  past  to  a  dignity  of  benevo- 
lence proportioned  to  the  grand  development  of  need  in 
the  Christian  Church.  Herein,  also,  we  have  an  interest- 
ing parallel  to  the  position  already  suggested  respecting 
elders  in  the  Christian  economy  as  they  were  elevated  to 
the  apostolic  plane  of  teaching  and  preaching  the  gospel 
— that  is,  all  that  were  gifted  and  called  to  this  work — 
by  the  great  commission  devolved  on  them  entirely  as 
the  witnessing  errand  of  the  apostles  ended.  As  the 
great  minor  office  of  the  Church  was  exalted  iu  service 


THE  DEACONS.  365 

at  the  beginning  of  gospel  promulgation  by  apostolic 
men,  so  the  great  major  office  of  our  ecclesia,  under  all 
dispensations,  was  widened  at  length  for  all  the  world 
over  by  the  commission  of  elders  innumerable  to  preach 
as  well  as  to  rule  at  the  demise  of  original  and  inspired 
witnesses  for  Christ. 

Let  us,  therefore,  contemplate  more  closely  the  nature 
of  this  office  from  the  standpoint  which  was  made  at  the 
renovation  over  which  presided  "  the  seven "  by  the 
motion  of  apostles  and  the  election  by  disciples,  confirmed 
with  the  solemnity  of  ordination.  We  cannot,  of  course, 
enter  into  the  detail  of  previous  work,  which  was  much 
the  same  in  the  care  and  management  of  sacred  things 
among  all  the  religious  of  history,  whether  true  or  false. 
The  custody,  the  handling,  the  robing,  the  providing,  the 
purchasing,  the  lighting,  the  cleaning,  the  arranging,  the 
carrying  of  any  consecrated  things  that  are  tangible, — all 
these  have  been  distributed  in  a  great  variety  of  ways, 
and  to  a  great  variety  of  subordinate  persons,  ever  since 
"  the  seven  "  took  charge  of  the  diaconate  and  made  it  a 
spiritual  office  like  that  of  the  eldership.  Now,  more 
than  ever,  the  giving  of  one's  substance  to  the  Lord 
and  alms  to  the  poor  for  the  Lord's  sake  is  an  act  of 
worship,  a  spiritual  sacrifice  acceptable  to  him.  The 
sublime  spirit  of  a  Stephen  or  a  Philip  is  the  heritage 
of  our  deacons ;  and  "  I  am  among  you  as  one  that 
serveth,"  said  He  who  "  hath  on  his  vesture  and  on 
his  thigh  a  name  written,  King  of  kings  and  Lord 
OF  LORDS."  Yet  the  scope  of  spiritual  service  belong- 
ins;  to  this  minor  office  in  the  Church  must  not  be  con- 
sidered  as  either  inchoate  or  indefinite :  it  is  a  defini- 
tively perfect  office. 

Certainly  a  license  to  preach  without  permission  to 


366  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

dispense  the  sacraraeuts,  which  the  novitiate  hastens  to 
leave  as  a  mei'e  probation  for  the  ministry,  should  not 
be  called  the  function  of  a  deacon.  Three  orders  in  the 
ministry  when  the  first  and  the  second  are  but  steps  to 
the  third  and  highest  in  the  aspirations  of  a  candidate 
are  not  three,  but  one  in  the  light  of  actuality  and 
common  sense.  As  well  might  we  claim  three  orders 
of  the  ministry  in  matriculatiou  at  a  theological  semi- 
nary as  the  first,  license  to  preach  as  the  second  and  or- 
dination to  the  office  of  our  bishop  as  the  third  in  a 
Presbyterian  system.  God  has  not  so  appointed  the 
offices  pertaining  to  his  everlasting  gospel.  These  are 
all  perpetual,  not  one  of  them  inchoate,  as  a  lower  step 
is  for  a  higher,  not  one  of  them  too  narrow  for  an  angel's 
operation,  when  the  Head  over  all  deigned  to  become  a 
deacon — "  minister  of  the  circumcision."  It  is  the  dis- 
tinctive sublimity  of  office  in  the  Church  of  God  to 
repress  man's  ambition,  to  forestall  "  emulations,"  that 
work  of  the  flesh,  and  make  the  lowest  incumbent  satis- 
fied with  his  lot  and  contented  to  magnify  the  office  with 
which  he  is  already  invested. 

As  the  office  of  deacon  is  not  inchoation  or  a  begin- 
ning merely,  so  also  it  is  not  vague  or  indefinite  as  to  its 
duties,  however  spiritual  it  has  now  become  and  freed 
from  the  menial  minuteness  with  which  it  was  anciently 
encumbered.  The  negative  side  of  its  definiteness  ap- 
pears in  the  sixteenth  canon  of  the  Council  at  Constan- 
tinople (a.  d.  680) :  "  The  Scripture  deacons  are  no  cither 
than  overseers  of  the  poor,  and  this  is  the  opinion  of  the 
Fathers."  These  Fathers  were  Polycarp,  Hernias,  Ori- 
gen,  Cyprian,  Eusebius,  Ambrose,  Jerome,  Chrysostom 
and  Sozomon  the  historian,  followed  to  the  Reformation 
and  after  it  by  the  Waldenses,  Wickliffe,  Tyndal,  Lara- 


THE  DEACONS.  367 

bert,  the  Lutheran,  Swiss,  French  and  Holland  churches; 
and,  without  citing  a  long  list  of  Anglican  authorities, 
by  the  venerated  American  bishop  White  of  Philadel- 
phia, who  wrote  thus  :  "All  I  contend  for  is  that  at  the 
first  institution  of  the  order  there  could  have  been  no 
difference  between  them  and  laymen  in  regard  to  the 
teaching  of  the  word  and  the  administering  of  the 
sacraments." 

The  positive  side  of  its  definite  nature  is  expressed 
comprehensively  in  the  phrase  diaxovzlv  TpaT:e^ac(;,  to 
"  serve  tables."  The  metonymy  or  figurative  sense  of 
this  expression  after  "  the  seven  "  superintendents  in  the 
ministry  of  gifts  took  the  charge  of  this  department  oif 
the  hands  of  the  apostles  in  its  new  plenitude  of  care,  and 
over  the  diversified  concern  of  an  old  diaconate,  may  be 
extended  almost  indefinitely.  The  whole  interest  of 
Christian  benevolence,  in  its  object,  system,  method, 
occasion,  motive,  amount,  collection  and  disbursement, 
are  legitimate  varieties  in  the  scope  of  this  minor  office. 
And  in  proportion  as  the  visible  Church  is  prospered  in 
the  world  by  the  accession  of  numbers,  by  the  accumu- 
lation of  wealth  and  by  the  applications  of  misery  from 
the  poor,  the  sick,  the  unfortunate,  the  perishing,  at 
home  or  abroad,  we  have  the  province  enlarged  of  a 
deacon's  functions.  In  fact,  the  prodigious  expansion 
of  finance  in  the  vantage  and  economies  of  the  present 
age  would  seem  to  uplift  this  office  to  a  practical  mas- 
tery of  management  in  directing  the  Church  as  well  as 
the  State.  The  deaconship,  moreover,  is  not  an  agency 
or  instrument  merely,  but  an  office  also,  and  therefore 
essentially  authoritative  to  a  certain  extent,  though  not 
self-adjusting. 

In  place  of  "the  seven"  from  the  ministry  of  gifts, 


368  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  of  the  apostles  also  from  the  immediate  commission 
of  the  Master,  we  have  perpetually  the  elders,  teaching 
and  ruling,  to  superintend  the  functional  work  of  dea- 
cons ;  and  as  the  original  superintendence  came  at  once 
to  relieve  the  office  of  menial  drudgery  and  exalt  it 
more  to  the  sphere  of  spiritual  function,  so  it  is  compe- 
tent to  the  assembly  of  elders,  teaching  and  ruling,  to 
discriminate  in  the  assignment  of  task  to  this  minor 
office  against  the  secularization  of  the  latter  in  too 
much  business  of  building  and  banking,  just  as  far  as 
it  appears  to  be  safe  in  keeping  or  disposing  of  temporal 
estate.  Hence  the  modern  device  of  trusteeship,  to  con- 
stitute a  point  of  contact  between  the  Church  and  the 
State — a  creation  of  the  latter  sought  and  accepted  by 
the  former  to  secure  protection,  convenience  and  facility 
of  legal  transactions.  Severed,  however,  in  this  way 
from  overmuch  burden  of  carnal  things,  the  deacon- 
ship  should  not  relinquish  care  and  acquiesce  in  such  a 
method  of  expediency  without  some  active  representa- 
tion ;  and  the  higher  directory  is  in  fault  when  it  allows 
a  body  of  secular  men,  some  or  all  of  whom  may  be 
non-communicants  within,  to  be  incorporated  and  to  act 
without  the  counsel  and  presence  of  deacons,  more  or  lea?, 
to  assist  them,  or  in  allowing  their  edifice  of  worship  to 
be  used  for  any  purpose  without  express  permission  from 
the  elders.  The  interaction  of  elders  and  deacons  may 
thus  be  guided  with  mutual  edification  to  themselves 
and  profit  to  the  people.  The  superintendence  must  not 
be  dictatorial  nor  the  service  a  slavery  :  the  independ- 
ence of  office  at  the  lower  degree  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  higher  degree.  The  deacons  should  report  to  the 
elders  at  stated  times  their  proceedings,  and  the  latter 
should  consider  well  the  report,  approving  or  disapprov- 


THE  DEACONS.  369 

ing,  but  not  annulling,  what  has  been  done.  Any  issue 
made  upon  the  validity  of  transaction  itself  should  be 
carried  to  a  higher  tribunal  of  representation. 

These  two  offices  should  be  kept  for  ever  distinct 
from  each  other,  notwithstanding  the  approximation 
of  one  to  the  other  in  spiritual  function  since  the  days 
of  Stephen  and  Philip.  Powers  of  government  should 
always  be  kept  in  a  balance.  When  one  outweighs  the 
other,  disorder  comes ;  and  when  one  absorbs  the  other, 
despotism  comes.  A  difference  of  function  is  most  use- 
ful when  it  makes  a  reciprocal  check  of  administration ; 
and  it  is  always  good  to  have  concurrence  of  judg- 
ment between  two  bodies — practically  a  greater  force 
than  unanimity  in  one  body,  however  massive  this  may 
be  in  agreement.  Hence  the  original  usage  in  the  Pe- 
formed  Church  of  Scotland,  to  gather  elders  and  deacons 
together  in  council  at  that  conjuncture  when  union  was 
strength  in  every  way  and  lords  of  the  laity  required  it, 
could  not  continue  long  without  making  an  amalgam  of 
both  offices  which  it  required  many  generations  after  to 
solve  and  separate  with  intelligible  difference.  So  in 
the  first  organization  of  elderships  in  this  country,  the 
sparse  and  scanty  supply  of  suitable  men  for  each,  and 
the  confused  apprehension  of  both  offices  at  first,  made 
the  American  churches  very  slow  to  discern  the  differ- 
ence, and  slower  still  to  feel  the  need  of  a  distinct  office 
in  the  deacon  for  the  full  equipment  of  a  church.  It 
was  only  in  the  last  generation  that  repeated  injunctions 
of  the  General  Assembly  could  persuade  the  people  to 
choose  deacons  and  elders  both  as  a  common  formation 
distinctly  made;  and  even  yet  many  churches  may  be 
found  without  this  development  of  the  two,  most  of 
them  being  jealous  of  innovation,  and  of  much  office, 

24 


370  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

having  only  elders  in  the  name,  and  some  of  them  only 
"  deacons,"  in  their  familiar  parlance. 

The    need   of    having    both   these    offices   distinctly 
organized  in  every  particular  church  may  be  urged — 

1.  Because  it  is  the  scriptural  pattern  of  a  complete 
church.  The  synagogue  at  Nazareth  where  our  Lord 
"  had  been  brought  up  " — the  church  that  he  attended 
from  his  youth,  "  as  his  custom  was  " — incidentally  fur- 
nished a  form  of  this  completeness,  on  the  occasion  of 
his  first  preaching  in  Galilee.  Luke  iv.  20.  Permission 
was  given  to  him  by  the  ruling  elders  to  read  and  speak 
in  that  sanctuary.  And  there  was  "delivered  unto  him 
the  book,"  as  "  he  stood  up  for  to  read ;"  and  after  he 
had  read  what  he  opened  the  book  to  find,  "  he  closed 
the  book,  and  he  gave  it  again  to  the  minister  and  sat 
down."  The  "  minister "  is  called  in  the  original  r^. 
b-jv/]f>sTrj,  which,  as  we  have  already  noticed,  is  a  synonym 
for  didxovoc: — "deacon."  The  minuteness  of  these  minor 
incidents  makes  the  picture  only  the  more  complete. 
Service  must  be  impersonated,  as  well  as  ruling  and 
teaching,  distinctly  ;  and  if  it  must  be  thus  complete  in 
the  meetino;,  how  much  more  must  it  be  so  in  the  varied 
responsibilities  of  movement  and  transaction  pertaining 
to  a  visible  church !  Material  equipment  in  persons 
must  belong  alike  to  the  house,  the  work,  the  road  and 
the  destination  of  incarnate  Christianity. 

2.  Merging  one  of  these  offices  in  the  other  must  lead 
to  confused  apprehension  of  either  and  of  both.  When 
the  office  of  deacon  became  the  favorite  of  bishops  in 
the  earlier  development  of  pi-elacy,  with  the  purpose  of 
neutralizing  and  abolishing  a  ruling  eldership  for  its 
natural  resistance  to  episcopal  ambition  and  usurpation, 
utter  confusion  followed  in  history  and  in  councils  at 


THE  DEACONS.  371 

every  attempt  to  define  the  province  of  the  surviving 
office,  that  of  elder  being  put  away  out  of  sight.  As 
we  descend  through  mist  and  change  toward  the  dark- 
ness of  mediaeval  ages,  we  find  the  office  of  deacon  made 
the  most  obscure,  perplexed  and  inconsistent  office  that 
was  ever  instituted  by  either  Church  or  State.  Natu- 
rally enough,  the  deacon  was  everything  to  the  bishop 
himself,  now  that  he  had  removed  the  intermediate  elder 
and  there  was  no  longer  a  bench  between  his  chair  and 
the  standing  creatures  of  his  power  called  by  Jerome 
"  servitos."  One  writes  that  they  were  "  eyes  and  ears, 
heart  and  mouth,  soul  and  perception,  to  the  bishop," 
and  he  was  everything  to  them.  They  could  even 
preach  and  baptize  when  he  bade  them  and  sent  the 
chrism  to  their  hands.  They  could  represent  him  in 
any  council  as  proxy,  and  yet  were  not  allowed  to  de- 
liberate and  vote  unless  in  provincial  councils,  where 
they  sat  as  scribes  and  disputants.  They  could  enrich 
themselves  and  rise  in  pride  and  social  standing  to  the 
highest  rank  of  influence,  and  yet  they  were  not  per- 
mitted to  sit  in  the  presence  of  a  presbyter,  but  had  still 
to  stand  and  wait  in  token  of  the  original  distinction. 
They  could  carry  the  sacramental  elements  to  the  people, 
present  or  absent,  but  not  at  all  to  the  presbyter,  be- 
cause they  were  not  authorized  to  consecrate  them. 
Then  fiintastic  varieties  were  made  in  their  vestments, 
their  grades,  numbers,  age  and  classes :  we  read  of 
archdeacons  and  subdeacous  and  cardinal  deacons  and 
regionary  deacons  and  stationary  deacons  and  testi- 
monial deacons.  This  last  variety  were  so  called  be- 
cause  they  lived  with  the  bishop  so  intimately  and  con- 
stantly that  they  could  be  witnesses  to  the  world  that 
he  was  a  pure  man  in  private  life.     And  of  course  he 


372  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

was  to  be  reciprocally  witness  for  them  after  they  were 
forbidden  to  marry,  notwithstanding  the  canonical  direc- 
tions of  the  apostle  Paul  respecting  the  deacon's  mar- 
ried life. 

Happily,  the  converse  merging  of  the  deacon's  office 
in  that  of  the  ruling  elder  which  has  been  allowed  so 
much  in  Presbyterian  churches  cannot  be  chargeable,  as 
yet,  with  similar  deflection  of  the  elder's  office  and  char- 
acter, but  the  tendency  is  dangerous  to  the  vital  interest 
and  the  wisely  balanced  equities  of  our  system.  It  has 
already  stamped  a  backwardness  upon  churches  mixed  in 
this  way  along  that  path  of  progress  which  is  the  glory 
of  this  age — giving  freely  and  systematically  of  what  God 
has  given  to  us  of  worldly  substance  for  the  spread  of 
the  gospel  and  the  establishment  of  its  institutions.  A 
deaconship  especially  devoted  to  the  work  of  beneficence, 
missions  and  education,  as  well  as  alms  for  the  poor  and 
asylums  for  the  suffering,  must  be  single,  with  its  badge 
or  stole  on  the  left  shoulder  and  its  right  arm  free  from 
trammel  to  sustain  the  activities  of  a  kingdom  which 
has  come,  and  is  coming  more  fully,  as  a  benediction 
to  the  world.  It  must  be  acknowledged  that  benevo- 
lent contributions  languish  wherever  there  is  no  dis- 
tinct board  of  deacons  to  stimulate  them  and  manage 
them  with  special  care.  "  Orthodox  and  stingy  "  is  the 
brand  upon  churches  of  the  Presbyterian  family  which 
have  all  sorts  of  elders  and  no  sort  of  deacons. 

3.  One  of  these  offices  will  be  enough  to  engross  the 
time  and  energy  of  a  man  who  is  engaged  in  the  proper 
avocations  of  life,  which  bring  that  contact  and  famil- 
iarity with  the  world  which  both  offices  require  in  order 
to  administer  them  successfully  and  wisely.  The  multi- 
form shapes  of  charity  must  be  studied  along  with  the 


THE  DEACONS.  373 

norm  and  principle  and  scope  of  this  grace  given  in 
God's  word.  The  resources  in  ways  and  means  must 
be  scanned  and  computed,  the  characters  of  both  bene- 
factors and  beneficiaries  must  be  found  out,  the  fields  of 
destitution  and  misery  must  be  contemplated,  the  pro- 
portion of  shares  in  all  varieties  of  distribution  must 
be  adjusted  fairly ;  and,  above  all,  the  spiritual  elevation 
of  church-work,  as  it  was  ordered  when  the  charisms  of 
Pentecost  were  called  for  to  qualify  "  the  seven "  or- 
dained to  the  oversight  of  this  department — "  full  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  and  wisdom," — all  these  require  time 
and  care  which  can  hardly  be  afforded  by  the  industries 
of  ordinary  livelihood,  much  less  by  the  occupations  of 
any  other  office  besides. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  office  of  ruling  elder  at  its 
positiou  in  the  system,  exercising  an  oversight  of  the 
deaconship,  far  enough  to  judge  of  its  wisdom  and 
fidelity  in  the  way  of  review  without  abating  its  au- 
tonomy, must,  of  course,  attain  much  of  the  same  furni- 
ture in  facts  and  information.  All  this,  added  to  the 
other  business  of  jurisdiction  and  similar  engagements 
in  the  world  to  provide  things  honest  in  the  sight  of 
all  men,  must  be  to  him  an  overcharge  which  is  incom- 
patible with  attention  to  the  details  of  collection  and  of 
distribution. 

4.  Even  if  the  two  could  be  compounded  without 
perverting  or  abating  either,  it  would  be  inexpedient 
for  the  welfare  of  the  church  to  dispense  with  practical 
distinction.  As  long  as  she  has  both  old  and  young  in 
her  membership  she  must  have  over  them  both  the  offices 
which  crystallize  these  adjectives  in  technical  names. 
And  it  is  highly  expedient  on  other  accounts  to  have 
many  of  the  members  of  the  church  in  office :   it  ani- 


374  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

mates,  invigorates  and  guards  the  incumbents  them- 
selves. The  aifairs  of  the  church  are  more  their  own 
personal  business.  Her  interests  are  more  an  active 
concernment.  They  prize  more  the  privilege  of  all 
her  ordinances  and  pray  more  for  her  prosperity  and 
ascertain  more  accurately  the  need  and  measure  and 
force  of  all  her  institutions.  When  the  number  of  male 
members  cannot  afford  a  bench  of  ruling  elders  and  a 
board  of  deacons  both,  the  former  must  have  the  pre- 
cedence in  organization,  as  the  older  precedes  the  younger 
in  authority ;  but  in  such  cases  the  pastor,  and  not  the 
bench  of  elders,  should  perform  a  deacon's  duty.  The 
apostles  themselves  handled  it  in  the  first  exigence  until 
the  accession  of  membership  in  a  multitude  would  fur- 
nish the  right  men  for  deacons  and  the  superintendence 
of  them  with  new  inspiration.  And  in  this  alternative 
there  would  be  less  confusion  of  office  and  less  hazard 
of  a  permanent  omission,  because  the  people  would  be 
sooner  prompted  to  relieve  the  pastor  of  excessive  toil 
and  distracting  care.  Of  course  it  is  not  meant  here 
that  offices  should  be  multiplied  at  the  pleasure  of  the 
church  as  an  expedient  for  exercising  the  variety  of  gifts 
which  men  may  fancy  valuable  in  promoting  her  welfare. 
God  only  makes  the  offices  and  endows  the  functionaries 
with  proper  gifts,  and  he  has  made  only  two  in  the 
record  of  his  will  named  and  greeted  by  the  apostle 
Paul  in  Phil.  i.  1 — "bishops  and  deacons." 

5.  If  we  are  not  authorized  to  make  offices  on  the 
score  of  expediency  in  our  own  judgment,  much  less  are 
we  justified  in  transferring  the  functions  of  any  sacred 
office  to  a  civil  office  because  the  latter  is  one  peculiar 
to  Christian  civilization — such  as  overseers  of  the  poor, 
whom  Christians  are  taxed  to  support,  and  are  too  often 


THE  DEACONS.  375 

substituting  for  church  deacons  in  the  stress  of  consciences 
that  are  concerned  only  somewhat  for  the  distribution  of 
alms.  A  Christian  people  should  be  specially  cautioned 
against  falling  into  such  a  snare.  It  is  not  benevolence ; 
it  is  not  obedience ;  it  is  not  spiritual  either  in  motive  or 
outcome. 

(1)  Overseers  of  the  poor  in  a  civil  community  cannot 
perform  the  duties  of  a  Christian  deacon.  The  most  de- 
serving j)enury  is  hardly  ever  benefited  by  the  State, 
because  it  shrinks  instinctively  from  making  known  its 
misery.  There  is  often  a  reduction  to  poverty  of  those 
who  were  once  in  ease  and  affluence,  and,  coming  down 
to  want  with  all  their  intelligence  and  sensibilities  made 
morbid  by  the  change,  they  would  rather  die  than  be 
gazed  at  in  the  ranks  of  public  pauperism.  There  is  also 
the  independence  of  lowly  and  honest  thrift,  which  would 
endure  any  privation  or  pinching  of  want  rather  than  feel 
the  obligations  of  relief  without  being  able  to  repay  it. 
There  must  be,  therefore,  a  special  order  of  spiritual 
officers  who  are  fitted  for  a  task  so  delicate  in  distribu- 
tion, whose  intercourse  within  the  church  will  enable 
them  to  find  out  the  need  which  is  never  obtrusive  and 
to  hear  the  whispers  of  that  fainting  penury  which  will 
not  clamor — men  of  heart  and  tender  sensibility  whom 
the  grace  and  compassion  of  Jesus,  combining  with  their 
native  and  sanctified  endowments,  qualify  for  this  work 
of  temporal  mercy. 

(2)  Even  if  our  civil  guardians  of  the  poor  were  com- 
petent, they  ought  not  to  undertake  a  work  so  spiritual 
in  its  nature.  Alms  of  the  State  are  not  relio-ious :  the 
relief  and  support  of  the  poor  is  matter  of  policy  alone. 
Utilitarian  only  in  the  prevention  of  crime,  the  relief  of 
private  habitations  from  beggary  at  the  doors,  the  saui- 


376  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tary  precaution  agaiust  disease  which  neglected  poverty 
might  occasion, — all  these  qualities  of  civil  disti'ibution 
to  want,  however  laudable,  are  but  carnal  in  comparison 
with  the  charity  that  is  born  of  God  in  his  kingdom  of 
grace.  Where  taxes  begin  charity  ceases.  Were  Chris- 
tians contented  with  the  care  bestowed  by  secular  asylums, 
they  would  soon  part  with  the  life  and  power  of  this 
greatest  of  graces  and  cease  to  feel  that  it  is  indeed  a 
grace  of  the  Spirit  and  a  distinguished  glory  of  the 
gospel;  and,  being  parted  from  this  its  life-spring,  it 
would  die,  and  enlightened  policy  itself  would  event- 
ually cease  to  bless  the  community  with  liberal  or  effect- 
ive provisions  for  the  poor. 

(3)  The  Church  is  a  debtor  to  the  State  in  the  obliga- 
tion she  acknowledges  to  cherish  her  own  poor  in  her 
own  way.  It  is  in  the  charter  she  has  from  her  Founder  : 
"  The  poor  ye  have  with  you  always."  It  is  her  ancient 
characteristic,  her  claim,  her  boast,  even  in  the  times  and 
places  of  her  utmost  degeneracy.  And  the  State,  there- 
fore, has  equitable  reason  to  construe  an  assumpsit  on  her 
part  in  the  hands  of  her  deacons.  Moral  obliquity,  if  not 
legal  also,  deforms  her  wherever  this  duty  is  neglected  or 
ignored.  She  is  a  family  bound  together  by  the  nearest 
and  dearest  of  ties.  Her  sympathies  within  are  likened 
to  a  fellow-feeling  within  us  among  the  members  of  the 
same  body.  If  it  would  be  reckoned  justly  a  disgrace 
for  any  private  family  to  surrender  an  inmate  to  the 
poorhouse  while  there  is  a  possibility  of  maintaining 
him  at  home,  how  much  more  dishonest  must  it  be  for 
this  chosen  and  peculiar  family  to  separate  any  poor 
member  to  the  heartless  chai-ity  of  a  civil  establishment 
while  there  is  any  ability  or  any  deacon  to  direct  it  by 
his  watchful    sensibilities   and    appointed    ministry  for 


THE  DEACONS.  377 

the  support  of  poverty  found  within  the  gates  of  our 
sanctuary  ! 

Orphanage  as  well  as  poverty  is  a  spiritual  charge  to 
the  ministrations  of  a  deacon.  Sponsorial  in  the  family 
covenant  itself,  he  may  stand  for  the  child  that  is  left 
without  a  parent  in  the  administration  of  baptism,  and 
with  Abrahamic  faith  may  vouch  for  its  nursing  and 
education.  The  oversight  ensuing  allies  him  closely  to 
the  elders,  both  teaching  and  ruling,  in  the  exercise 
of  his  peculiar  functions.  Yet  in  all  these  duties  of  a 
spiritual  nature  he  is  subject  rightly  to  the  control  of 
an  eldership,  and  only  in  the  distribution  of  alms  and 
goods  to  the  poor  is  he  self-controlled  and  exclusive  in 
authority,  bound  only  to  hear  the  advice  of  elders.  The 
progress  of  benevolence  in  these  last  times  would  en- 
large the  spiritual  sphere  of  a  deacon's  work,  fain  to 
add  analogies  to  the  literal  narrowness  of  his  functions 
in  Presbytery,  such  as  money  collected  and  given  wher- 
ever the  gospel  is  preached  to  the  poor;  money  sent  out- 
side of  the  Church  to  prepare  the  way  for  other  direct 
ministrations  on  her  errand;  money  for  the  spiritual 
instruction  as  well  as  support  of  widows  and  orphans. 
How  many  ministers  of  the  word  who  toil  among  the 
rich  as  well  as  among  the  poor  churches,  for  a  pittance 
of  present  recompense,  would  feel  tlieir  penury  but  little 
inconvenience  if  they  knew  well  that  the  care  of  their 
families  in  widowhood  and  orphanage  would  be  regarded 
by  surviving  ministers  of  another  order  among  the 
same  people  as  a  sacred  task  dear  as  supporting  the 
gospel  itself?  Because  the  Middle  Ages  went  too  far 
in  putting  the  deacon  to  everything,  the  modern  ages 
should  not  err  in  the  constriction  of  an  opposite  ex- 
treme.    There  is  room  and  there  is  need  for  expansion. 


378  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

The  Deaconess. 

The  Christian  diacouate  of  which  we  have  spoken 
has  already  virtually  attained  the  expansion  to  which  it 
is  entitled  in  the  great  activity  and  service  of  Chris- 
tian woman  beyond  the  distribution  of  alms  at  home 
and  beyond  the  frontier  of  Christian  civilization  and 
beyond  the  setting  sun,  till  the  whole  earth  is  girdled 
with  her  beneficence  in  missions  of  the  Church.  We 
should  now  give  her  a  normal  recognition  and  an  official 
place  in  our  system.  God  has  given  her  the  name  of 
"  deacon  " — which  in  the  original  is  both  male  and 
female — and  the  world  is  witnessing  how  well  she  de- 
serves it.  True,  it  is  not  authority  she  seeks  in  doing 
good,  and  a  formal  investiture  with  office  may  even  be 
shunned  by  the  delicacy  of  her  nature ;  but  power  in 
the  Church  should  always  be  defined  in  a  formal  con- 
stitution, especially  when  it  grows  and  waxes  exceed- 
ingly and  earns  in  its  progress  the  suffrage  and  the 
plaudit  of  the  people. 

No  chapter  in  the  Bible  touches  the  deacon's  office 
with  that  breadth  and  beauty  which  the  oversight  of  "  the 
seven  "  imparted  so  much  as  the  sixteenth  of  Romans. 
Ver.  1  :  "  I  commend  unto  you  Phoebe  our  sister,  which 
is  a  servant  (deaconess)  of  the  church  which  is  at  Cen- 
chrea ;"  ver.  3  :  '"  Greet  Priscilla  and  Aquila  my  help- 
ers in  Christ  Jesus ;"  ver.  6  :  "  Greet  Mary,  who  be- 
stowed much  labor  on  us  ;"  ver.  12  :  "Salute  Tryphena 
and  Tryphosa,  who  labor  in  the  Lord."  The  cluster 
of  salutations  here  at  the  end  of  this  grand  Epistle  so 
replete  with  climax  and  the  marrow  of  gospel  truth  and 
century-plants  of  logic  is  the  flower  that  surmounts  it, 
and  the  letter  is  said  to  have  been  carried  from  Corinth 


THE  DEACONS.  379 

to  Rome  by  the  first-named  deaconess  herself.  The 
errand  of  Phoebe  to  Rome  was  evidently  official.  Ver.  2  : 
"  That  ye  receive  her  in  the  Lord,  as  becometh  saints, 
and  that  ye  assist  her  in  whatsoever  business  she  hath 
need  of  you ;  for  she  hath  been  a  succorer  of  many  and 
of  myself  also,"  "  For  "  in  this  latter  clause  interprets 
the  "  business  "  which  took  her  to  Rome — the  continu- 
ance of  that  official  beneficence  which  Paul  and  many 
others  had  shared ;  so,  also,  does  the  mention  of  a  par- 
ticular church,  "  Cenchrea,"  of  which  she  was  a  "  serv- 
ant," indicating  that  her  special  business  at  Rome  must 
have  been  the  interest  of  that  church — probably  in  the 
way  of  collecting  funds  where  opulent  Christians  were 
to  be  found  and  the  treasures  of  the  world  were  so 
much  accumulated.  On  any  other  business,  of  a  per- 
sonal or  a  social  nature,  she  would  have  been  com- 
mended as  a  "  servant  of  the  Lord  "  in  the  usual  form 
of  Christian  commendation. 

The  next  verse  brings  to  view  a  similar  office  and 
order  at  Rome  itself:  "Greet  Priscilla  and  Aquila  my 
helpers  in  Christ  Jesus."  Helpers  have  an  official  name 
in  the  catalogue  of  gifts  to  the  primitive  Church  (1  Cor. 
xii.  28  :  avril-rjipttc, — "helps");  and  when  we  recall  the 
fact  that  the  original  seven  set  over  the  diaconate  were 
evidently  gifted  with  the  charisms  of  apostolic  time, 
though  attached  to  a  ministry  of  permanent  order  for 
an  occasion  as  auxiliary  to  the  apostolic  service,  we 
may  well  believe  that  the  term  "  helpers  "  among  godly 
women  was  official  as  well  as  appellative  in  signification. 
And  here  we  have  another  evidence  of  enlargement  and 
elevation  for  the  order  of  deacon  and  deaconess.  Be- 
sides the  five  particular  forms  of  ministration  derived 
from  the  old  economy  and  assigned  by  the  early  Fathers 


380  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

to  the  deaconess  of  the  uew — care  of  the  poor,  the  sick, 
the  stranger,  the  widow  and  the  orphan — they  were 
helpers  of  apostles,  whose  mission  was  extensive  as  the 
globe ;  they  were  sisters  of  mercy  to  the  martyrs  whom 
no  male  deacon  could  reach  without  the  peril  of  life ; 
they  were  like  both  the  confessor  Philip  and  the  martyr 
Stephen  in  that  kind  of  signal  service  which  all  history 
commemorates.  Pliny  wrote  to  Trajan  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  second  century  that  he  had  subjected  women 
to  the  torture  in  persecution  that  he  might  extort  con- 
fession: ''Ex  duabus  ancillis  quae  ministrae  dicebantur." 
Evidently  one  of  these  nouns,  ancilla,  is  the  common 
designation  of  handmaid,  and  the  other,  miiiisfra,  the 
official  name  of  a  female  servant.  And  this  term  trans- 
lates the  Greek  dcdxovoz  in  patristic  Latin. 

It  is  hard  to  compress  within  proper  limits  the  con- 
currence of  our  best  commentators,  Lutheran  and  Cal- 
vinistic,  on  this  point — the  official  sense  given  to  the 
service  of  Phoebe.  Calvin  says :  "  He  commends  to 
them  Phoebe,  to  whom  he  gave  this  epistle  to  be  brought 
to  them ;  and  in  the  first  place  he  commends  her  on 
account  of  her  office,  for  she  performed  a  most  honor- 
able and  a  most  holy  function  in  the  church.  .  .  .  As, 
then,  she  was  a  deaconess — minisfra — of  the  Cenchrean 
church,  he  bids  that  ou  that  account  she  should  be  re- 
ceived in  the  Lord  ;  we  ought  surely  to  regard  and 
especially  to  love  and  honor  those  who  perform  a  public 
office  in  the  Church."  From  John  Calvin  to  Charles 
Hodge,  inclusively,  we  have  a  singular  succession  of 
learned  and  illustrious  men  affirming  the  official  mean- 
ing of  "  deaconess  "  in  its  application  to  Phoebe.  Some 
of  these  are  Beza,  Van  Miistricht,  MacKnight,  Bing- 
ham, Suicer,  Schleusner,  Parkhurst,  Kitto,  Brown,  and 


THE  DEACONS.  381 

last — not  least,  by  any  means — Thomas  Chalmers  of 
Scotland :  "  Here  too  we  are  presented  with  another 
most  useful  indication  —  the  employment  of  female 
agency,  under  the  eye  and  with  the  sanction  of  an 
apostle,  in  the  business  of  a  church.  It  is  well  to  have 
inspired  authority  for  a  practice  too  little  known  and 
too  little  proceeded  on  in  modern  times.  Phoebe  be- 
'  longed  to  the  order  of  deaconesses,  in  which  capacity 
she  had  been  the  helper  of  many,  including  Paul  him- 
self. Like  the  women  in  the  Gospels  who  Avaited  on 
our  Saviour,  she  may  have  ministered  to  them  of  her 
substance,  though  there  can  be  little  doubt  that,  as  the 
holder  of  an  official  station  in  the  church,  she  ministered 
to  them  of  her  service  also." 

The  word  of  God,  however,  does  not  give  a  name 
to  any  office  or  officer  without  also  giving  the  character 
of  qualifications  required  for  the  exercise  of  its  func- 
tions. He  not  only  inspires  the  word,  male  and  female 
— dcdxovoQ — but  he  plainly  signifies  what  the  woman  as 
well  as  the  man  must  be  to  magnify  the  office.  So  we 
read  in  1  Tim.  iii.  11:  "Even  so  must  i/iew- wives  be 
grave,  not  slanderers,  sober,  faithful  in  all  things." 
Here,  however,  the  Authorized  Version  is  at  fault,  and 
the  recent  Revision  is  decidedly  better :  "  Women  in 
like  manner  must  be  grave,  not  slanderers,  temperate, 
faithful  in  all  things."  This  follows  the  Vulgate,  muli- 
eres  similiter,  and  is  nearer  to  the  original ;  for,  though 
yuvaixa(;  may  mean  "wives,"  its  general  meaning  is 
women  as  antithetical  to  men,  whether  married  or  un- 
married. And  the  connection  here  is  obviously  women 
of  the  diaconate  rather  than  of  the  house,  with  husband 
and  children,  domestic  proprieties  mentioned  in  the  next 
verse   being   expressly   assigned   to   the    male   deacon. 


382  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Doubtless  the  wives  of  deacons  were  often  in  the  same 
office,  but  in  this  passage  "  their "  does  not  belong  to 
the  sense  and  is  not  in  the  original.  It  is  only  female 
deacons  as  a  distinct  variety  in  the  office,  enumerated 
here  for  the  purpose  of  showing  their  distinctly  similar 
and  proper  characteristics. 

An  official  name  being  ascertained,  and  a  list  of  proper 
qualifications  and  becoming  character  being  also  distinctly 
revealed,  the  next  question  to  be  settled  is  the  se])arate 
organization  of  deaconesses  in  the  regular  scheme  of 
church  offices.  An  eleemosynary  institute  of  some  kind, 
with  its  roll  of  members,  conditions  of  admission,  rules 
of  order,  duties  prescribed,  privileges  forfeited,  etc., 
would  seem  to  be  the  natural  formation  of  such  a  guild ; 
and  any  degree  of  intimation  or  color  of  fact  in  sacred 
history  which  makes  complete  the  postulates  of  office 
already  noticed  should  settle  the  claim  we  make  for 
woman's  office  and  give  it  place  and  habitation.  If  we 
had  no  name  for  office  which  is  both  male  and  female 
in  the  original,  and  if  we  had  no  corresponding  functions 
of  an  official  nature  described  in  Scripture,  and  no  list 
of  qualifications  detailed,  and  no  crowd  of  consecrated 
women  eulogized  by  the  great  apostle  for  their  functional 
aid  in  his  labor  and  succor  in  his  misery,  then  indeed  the 
probability  would  be  against  our  plea  when  we  allege 
against  Neander  an  institution  of  deaconesses  rather 
than  a  poorhouse  for  widows  in  the  concise  directions 
of  1  Tim.  V.  3-16. 

The  averment  that  Phoebe  was  a  deaconess  approved 
and  commended  by  the  apostle  Paul,  and  the  greeting 
sent  to  others  in  other  places  for  busy  and  faithful 
occupation  in  the  same  way,  may  obviously  dispense 
with   a   formal   account   of   the    institution,   either   as 


THE  DEACONS.  383 

derived  from  the  old  economy  or  as  constructed  again 
under  the  new.  This  female  deaconship,  being  supple- 
mentary in  its  nature,  needs  no  more  than  allusion  or 
indirect  mention  to  signify  its  corporate  existence.  Such 
implication  is  found  in  the  passage  cited  above.  Begin- 
ning with  the  subject  of  "  widows,"  always  cherished  by 
the  Church  under  both  dispensations,  the  apostle  writes 
(ver.  3),  "  Honor  widows  that  are  widows  indeed."  The 
proper  attention  to  these  and  the  equitable  supply  of  their 
need  were  the  occasion,  we  have  seen  (Acts  vi.),  of  re- 
habilitating a  deaconship  at  the  beginning  of  the  gospel, 
when  the  seven  were  "  appointed  over  this  business " 
and  selected  with  solemnity  of  procedure  from  the 
ministry  of  gifts  then  at  work  with  the  apostles.  And, 
as  these  were  subsequently  identified  with  deacons  them- 
selves because  of  the  trust  in  direction  of  that  order,  so 
the  female  deacons  were  afterward  identified  with  widows 
because  of  the  original  and  special  trust  confided  to  this 
order,  according  to  the- Scriptures.  This  apparent  con- 
fusion of  widows  dependent  with  widows  superintend- 
ing them — the -governed  with  thcvgovernesses  themselves 
— must  be  discerned  with  close  attention,  or  this  remark- 
able text  (1  Tim.  v.  3)  will  be  inexplicable. 

All  New-Testament  offices  are  free  from  prescription 
of  age  as  it  was  made  in  the  temple-service  of  old — not 
in  the  synagogue,  after  which  our  ecclesia  has  been 
modelled.  When  we  read,  therefore,  "  Let  not  a  widow 
be  taken  into  the  number  under  threescore  years  old," 
we  interpret  fairly  that  maturity  of  mind  and  the  ten- 
derness of  pity  and  ripeness  of  piety  becoming  the  office 
of  a  deaconess  henceforth  are  required  by  this  typical 
form  in  the  literal  threescore  prescribed  at  the  origin  of 
a  female  diaconate.    Certainly,  this  expression  cannot  be 


384  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

taken  as  a  limitation  to  the  number  of  beneficiaries  ad- 
mitted to  the  charities  of  a  public  asylum.  Even  the 
civic  provision  for  the  poor  would  never  so  hamper 
applications  for  admittance,  and  we  cannot  for  a  moment 
suppose  that  Christian  benevolence,  aglow  even  in  its 
cradle,  would  devise  a  restriction  so  exclusive  and  un- 
reasonable ;  for  the  childless  widow  and  the  young 
widow  with  children  in  their  childhood,  too  young  to 
provide  for  her;  must  be  regarded  in  every  age  as  ordi- 
narily the  most  needy  and  dependent  of  widows.  In 
this  very  connection  the  apostle  says :  "  If  any  widow 
have  children  or  nephews  let  them  learn  first  to  shew 
piety  (kindness)  at  home,  and  to  requite  their  parents." 
If,  therefore,  the  widow,  at  any  age,  who  has  neither 
child  nor  nephew  to  provide  for  her  at  a  home  of  her 
own  makes  application  to  the  home  provided  by  the 
Church  for  the  poor,  she  must  not  be  refused  because 
she  is  less  than  "  threescore  years  old."  "  Taken  into 
the  number,"  then,  must  mean  some  other  kind  of 
number  than  the  inmates  of  charitable  subsistence  at  a 
home  supported  by  the  alms  of  the  Church. 

The  word  xarahyeadco,  used  only  here  and  translated 
"  taken  into  the  number,"  means  in  classical  use  enrol- 
ment of  the  most  particular  kind,  picking  out  from  a 
general  register,  civil  or  military,  a  few  in  detail  for 
special  duty — the  sense  given  to  this  word  by  Erasmus, 
Beza  and  many  others.  Tlie  detail  here  enjoined  cannot, 
on  the  principles  of  common  charity  and  common  sense, 
refer  to  the  widows  received  for  support  in  their  destitu- 
tion, but  to  those  who  administer  and  superintend  the 
support  aiforded ;  and  if  those  admitted  into  the  cata- 
logue of  overseers  and  managers  be  widows  at  all,  they 
must   be   persons   of  experience  threescore  years   old, 


THE  DEACONS.  385 

whose  qualifications  for  such  a  ministry  must  have  been 
well  tested:  "Well  reported  of  for  good  works;  if  she 
have  brought  up  children,  if  she  have  lodged  strangers, 
if  she  have  washed  the  saints'  feet,  if  she  have  relieved 
the  afflicted,  if  she  have  diligently  followed  every  good 
work."  In  short,  such  a  person  could  not  herself  be  a 
dependent  pauper ;  if  she  were,  the  "  brought-up  chil- 
dren "  would  be  required,  according  to  the  context  of 
this  quotation,  to  support  her  in  private  homes.  But  the 
whole  description  of  her  character  is  that  of  a  benefac- 
tress who  had  enjoyed  leisure  and  means  for  doing  good 
to  others  iu  hospitality  and  condescending  kindness  to 
the  saints  and  the  relief  of  affliction,  and  all  this  done 
"diligently,"  as  if  she  had  been  already  given  wholly 
to  the  dispensing  of  charity. 

Precisely  such  a  widow,  desiring,  withal,  to  enter  the 
official  list  of  deaconesses,  could  not  be  found — one  among 
a  thousand — in  any  generation;  and  even  if  she  could  be, 
she  would  be  too  old  to  last  long  in  the  work  of  distribu- 
tion. "  Murmuring  "  woukl  soon  be  heard  again  through 
all  the  wards  of  an  asylum  that  "  widows  were  neglected 
iu  the  dailv  ministration,"  and  the  aged  overseers  them- 
selves — exceedingly  few  in  number,  and  inadequate, 
with  the  best  of  health,  to  manage  and  supply  the 
crowd  of  needy  ones  within — must  have  tiie  list  en- 
larged and  the  activities  of  younger  age  enrolled  to 
attend  the  weakness  of  old  age  in  the  oversight  as  well 
as  in  a  throng  of  poverty  admitted  to  the  institution. 
Hence  the  necessity  of  a  figurative  sense  to  the  require- 
ment of  sixty  years  in  age  for  a  fellowship  of  care  "over 
this  business."  With  the  exception  of  Tertullian,  all 
the  early  Fathers  who  adverted  to  the  subject  of  this 
office  agreed  in  divesting  of  its  literalism  the  original 

2.1 


386  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

iuj unction,  fairly  construing  it  to  signify  sound  judg- 
ment, thoughtful  concern,  prudence  and  practical  wis- 
dom, as  well  as  tried  fidelity  in  qualifying  for  the  office 
of  deaconess.  This  liberal  interpretation  greatly  in- 
creased the  diaconate  of  women,  and  obtained  currency, 
perhaps,  even  before  the  demise  of  Paul  himself;  for 
early  in  the  second  century  Ignatius  wrote  to  his 
church  at  Antioch,  "  Salute  the  deaconesses  in  Christ 
Jesus."  The  home  for  destitute  widows  had  now  be- 
come but  one  department  of  their  helpfulness.  The 
centralization  with  which  their  work  had  begun  was 
broken  up  and  diffused,  and  their  function,  like  "the 
alabaster  box  of  very  precious  ointment,"  followed  the 
gospel  in  the  spread  thereof :  "  Wheresoever  this  gospel 
shall  be  preached  in  the  whole  world,  there  shall  also 
this,  that  this  woman  hath  done,  be  tokl  for  a  memorial 
of  her."  Thus  it  is  that  Jesus  embalms  the  good  work 
of  woman. 

Let  us  beware  of  the  grudging  "  indignation  "  with 
which  his  disciples  said,  "  To  what  purpose  is  this 
waste?  For  this  ointment  might  have  been  sold  for 
much  and  given  to  the  poor."  Is  there  now  no  me- 
morial of  benefaction  to  the  poor  in  the  distinctive 
work  of  woman,  inasmuch  as  if  she  does  it  to  the 
least  of  these  she  does  it  to  the  Saviour  himself? 
Should  not  the  great  apostle  of  the  Gentiles  be  credited 
with  similar  dedication  in  the  monumental  pattern  he 
has  drawn  of  the  good  women's,  office  at  the  widows' 
home?  The  compact  abruptness  of  his  style  in  making 
transitions  and  leaving  us  to  make  distinctions  where  he 
has  dropped  his  massive  thought  and  given  his  compre- 
hensive directions  must  not  be  made  a  jumble  in  our 
haste  to  simplify  conclusions.     We  have  in  the  text  now 


THE  DEACONS.  387 

before  us  a  very  composite  account  of  eleemosynary 
foundations  at  the  first  in  primitive  Christianity,  and 
we  have  attempted  to  unravel  a  thread  of  qualification 
for  the  oversight  by  such  functionaries  as  have  (charge 
of  the  female  poor;  but  we  are  just  here  confronted 
with  an  array  of  modern  literature  which  would  relegate 
to  chaos  the  effort  of  explanation  and  insist  that  the 
whole  context  intends  to  signify  only  the  widows  who 
are  to  be  supported  by  the  public  charity  of  the  Church. 
Even  the  richest  and  the  best,  the  well-to-do  and  the 
most  helpless  of  widows  are  alike  to  be  supported  when 
they  have  no  kinsfolk  to  support  them  with  private 
benevolence.  Yet  we  are  told  in  that  word  which  is 
translated  by  the  phrase  "  taken  into  the  number  "  that 
there  must  be  a  careful  picking  and  choosing  of  this 
number,  which  is  proper  in  the  choice  of  officers  to 
superintend  the  charity,  but  simply  absurd  in  the  nature 
of  charity  as  to  the  objects  of  relief  and  support,  and 
entirely  inconsistent  with  a  wholesale  consignment  to 
the  almshouse  of  the  persons  described  in  the  passage. 
The  literal  limitation  described  in  the  ninth  and  tenth 
verses  would  confine  the  choice  of  deaconesses  to  a  very 
few  persons  fitted  for  the  ministration  ;  but  if  it  be 
applied  to  the  indigent  themselves  received  and  sup- 
ported, there  would  be  nullification  of  the  whole  scheme 
and  design  of  a  charitable  provision.  The  entire  de- 
scription of  the  widow  entitled  to  "  be  taken  into  the 
number"  selects  the  directrix  alone,  and  excludes  from 
this  number  the  directed  and  the  fit  beneficiaries. 

Besides,  the  exclusion  mentioned  in  the  eleventh  vei'se 
— "  the  younger  widows  refuse  " — aggravates  the  void- 
ance  with  a  cruel  disparagement  of  the  lone  childless 
widow  who  has  had  no  experience,  nor  means  for  doing 


388  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

good  to  others,  nor  opportunities  for  hospitality,  nor 
near  of  kin  to  depend  on,  and  all  the  more  needing  to 
be  admitted,  instructed  and  guided,  as  well  as  fed  and 
clothed,  by  the  common  charities  of  the  faithful.  The 
reason  for  such  a  refusal — because  "they  will  marry" 
and  "have  damnation,  because  they  have  cast  oif  their 
first  faith  " — is  a  dire  indignity  and  an  absurd  injustice 
also  if  we  are  to  understand  the  refusal  to  mean  as  a 
beneficiary  seeking  support  in  the  almshouse ;  for  the 
probability  of  her  being  married  again  would  only  sug- 
gest a  speedy  relief  to  the  funds  provided  for  the  sup- 
port of  a  destitute  community.  Still  more  atrocious  in 
such  a  case  are  the  words  "having  damnation" — that  is, 
"  condemnation " — "  because  they  have  cast  off  their 
first  faith."  In  the  same  connection  we  read,  "  I  will, 
therefore,  that  the  younger  women  marry."  He  cannot 
mean  that  he  wills  their  "  damnation  "  in  being  married 
again  or  violating  any  faith  in  having  been  entered  as 
paupers.  Everything  in  such  language  of  the  apostle 
is  explicable  only  on  the  hypothesis  of  an  instituted 
order  being  the  main  drift  of  these  verses,  into  which 
the  younger  widow  could  not  be  admitted  then  lest 
another  marriage  would  interrupt  her  usefulness  in 
office  and  bring  condemnation  on  herself  and  the  order 
also  for  mutability  in  vows  and  dereliction  of  engage- 
ment on  which  the  giving  of  charity  had  relied. 

Thus  we  have  an  official  name,  official  qualifications 
and  official  devotement  fairly  given  by  Holy  Scripture 
for  the  office  of  deaconess  in  the  Church  wherever  and 
whenever  God  gives  the  gift  on  which  it  is  founded.  It  is 
for  us  to  interpret  the  gift  when  it  comes,  and  the  rule 
of  this  interpretation  is  furnished  by  God's  own  word. 
The  ministry  of  gifts  was  called  to  touch  the  old  di- 


THE  DEACONS.  389 

aconate  with  new  life  and  elevation  at  a  miraculous  time 
in  the  days  of  Philip  and  Stephen.  The  greater  part 
of  the  elevation  then  bestowed  consisted,  manifestly,  in 
the  endowment  of  sainted  women.  Last  at  the  cross 
and  first  at  the  tomb  of  our  exalted  Saviour,  he  did  not 
forget  to  exalt  them  also  in  the  redemption  when  he 
sent  the  Comforter,  as  he  had  promised — the  Holy 
Ghost,  in  the  plenitude  of  gifts  and  graces — on  all  that 
^vaited :  "And  on  my  servants  and  on  my  handmaidens, 
I  will  pour  out  in  those  days  of  my  Spirit ;  and  they 
shall  prophesy." 

"  Those  days "  are  commensurate  with  the  ministra- 
tion of  the  Spirit,  and  this  continues  until  this  day. 
We  may  not  now  see  "  wonders  in  heaven  above,  and 
signs  in  the  earth  beneath,"  for  we  do  not  need  to  see 
them,  but  we  see  culture  by  the  Spirit,  which  was  only 
anticipated  by  the  marvels  of  Pentecost  as  preternatural 
signs  of  what  is  coming  in  progress  of  time  and  always 
followed  by  the  realization  that  abides.  Gifts  for  Phoebe's 
"business"  and  for  Priscilla's  "helping "  and  for  Tryphe- 
ua's  "  labor"  still  remain,  and  these  are  now  as  much  the 
fruit  of  the  Spirit  as  they  were  when  Stephen  died. 
The  Spirit  who  "  dwelleth  in  us  and  shall  be  with  us  " 
delights  in  the  culture  which  revives  them  and  con- 
tinues them,  for  this  culture  is  his  own  and  will  endure 
in  the  Church  in  proportion  to  the  slowness  of  their 
growth  and  development. 

But  here  we  may  be  challenged  for  an  explanation  of 
their  disappearance  in  the  visible  Church  within  the 
first  thousand  years  of  their  existence.  We  may  briefly 
answer,  Because  the  glory  had  departed  and  the  culture 
of  woman  was  reversed  by  apostasy  in  the  Church  itself. 
Pure  Christianitv  alone  elevates  woman  and  endows  her 


390  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

with  adequate  gifts  for  office  in  the  Church,  and  the 
slightest  alloy  of  superstition  contracts  the  sensibilities 
of  her  nature.  Charity  is  broad,  and  superstition  is 
narrow. 

(1)  The  first  cause  of  decay  and  discontinuance,  there- 
fore, in  the  female  diaconate  was  the  abatement  of  her 
own  qualifications  by  reason  of  spiritual  decline.  With 
the  return  of  Jewish  jmsch  and  mixture  of  pagan  rites 
and  holidays  in  the  second  century,  when  Christian 
ministers  affected  the  sacerdotal  shadows  of  old  and 
the  name  of  "  priest,"  the  bondage  of  woman  returned, 
her  charities  lost  their  freedom,  and  of  course  their 
breadth,  variety  and  abundance — not  all  at  once,  indeed, 
but  perceptibly  begun  to  the  eye  of  close  attention  in 
Church  history.  Ritualistic  slavery  began  to  chain  the 
hands  of  woman  and  superstitious  fear  to  palsy  her 
benevolence  and  love.  Let  the  student  compare  the 
vivid  portraiture  of  pious  women  throughout  the  New 
Testament,  from  the  birth  of  Jesus  to  the  end  of  Ro- 
mans, with  the  authentic  annals  of  history  from  the 
middle  of  the  second  century  to  that  of  the  third,  and 
see  how  the  gold  became  dim  and  the  most  fine  gold 
was  changed.  Her  beautiful  charity  was  shrivelled, 
and  councils  M^ere  beginning  to  advise  the  discontinu- 
ance of  her  office. 

(2)  The  invasion  of  monachism  and  virginity  was 
another  evil  which  largely  accounts  for  the  decline  of 
chui'ch  "  business  "  in  the  hands  of  women.  When  we 
consider  the  model  of  a  deaconess,  furnished  at  first  by 
the  Spirit  of  inspiration  (1  Tim.  v.  10),  and  observe 
that  she  was  a  widow  who  had  brought  up  children, 
etc.,  we  can  see  how  baleful  and  subversive  to  her  office 
must  have  been  the  fanatical  rage  of  anchoretic  life,  in 


THE  DEACONS.  391 

which  marriage  was  avoided  and  despised  as  a  lower 
sanctity,  if  sauctity  at  all  of  any  degree.  The  widow 
might  be  still  a  beneficiary,  as  the  vilest  wretch  might 
be,  but  the  notion  of  an  office  in  the  Church  for  any 
one  that  ever  had  been  a  wife  must  be  exploded.  The 
succession  of  widows  with  such  contaminating  antece- 
dents, or  of  maidens  who  vowed  never  to  be  married, 
and  of  course  never  to  gain  the  experience  which  the 
office  required  at  the  first  institution,  would  be  a  de- 
parture from  the  original  far  enough  to  make  it  soon  an 
obsolete  office  entirely. 

(3)  Another  cause  of  abolition  was  the  exaltation  of 
male  deacons  to  a  position  which  female  deacons  could 
never  attain — that  of  preachers.  In  the  conflict  of  the 
bishop  with  his  ruling  elders  that  eventuated  in  the  sup- 
pression of  the  latter  deacons  were  the  great  instrumen- 
tality employed  by  the  former.  The  diaconate  of  any 
degree  would  never  indeed  be  reckoned  sacerdotal,  but 
all  the  elders  might  be,  as  well  as  the  bishoj)S,  for  they 
were  confessedly  the  same  rank  in  Scripture ;  and  the 
elders  had  made  the  bishops,  by  their  own  designation, 
at  the  beginning.  The  parochial  chief,  as  we  have 
noticed  in  another  connection,  would  always  find  the 
suffragans  an  obstruction  to  his  ambition,  and  as  soon 
as  he  felt  himself  to  be  a  priest  with  sacerdotal  aspira- 
tions he  wished  to  go  higher  than  a  parish,  and  he  could 
not  have  the  sturdy  elders  with  him  as  a  hierarch.  The 
diocesan  must,  therefore,  have  his  servants  to  be  "his 
eye,  his  ear,  his  hand "  and  the  medium  of  all  com- 
munication with  his  peojile.  Of  course  rulers  would 
not  be  such,  and  the  traditional  servants  of  the  Church 
must  now  become  his  own  peculiar  "  helps  ;"  and  the 
consequence  was  a  liberal  recompense  which  soon  made 


392  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

them  the  richest  order  of  the  Church,  and  personally 
advanced  them  in  function  to  any  degree  short  of  priest- 
hood, and  to  any  privilege  in  ministering  the  word  short 
of  dispensing  both  of  the  sacraments. 

Precisely  here  it  was  that  the  deaconess  became  for- 
saken and  helpless  in  the  diaconate ;  for  the  same  pastoral 
letter  that  contains  the  charter  of  her  office  prohibits  ex- 
pressly her  privilege  to  preach  or  to  teach  publicly  in  the 
church.  The  virgin  purity  of  her  deaconship  must  there- 
fore become  a  protest  against  the  deflection  of  men  in  the 
office  and  against  the  ambitions  of  priests  and  prelates  to 
rise,  and  raise  the  servants  over  the  rulers  to  be  their  own 
factitious  adjutants  in  the  race  of  aggrandizement.  Elders 
who  had  been  rulers  only,  either  would  catch  the  same 
contagion  to  covet  better  gifts  and  come  to  sacerdotal 
honors,  or  would  quit  in  disgust  a  station  which  was 
now  trodden  under  foot  by  servants  in  livery.  So  they 
vanished,  but  the  deaconesses  had  too  much  hold  on  the 
heart  of  the  Church  to  be  easily  dislodged  and  abated. 
It  required  many  councils  composed  of  bishops,  priests 
and  deacons  to  rid  themselves  of  woman's  record  and 
reproach  against  them.  Rancor  and  ridicule,  combined 
with  the  stigma  of  clerical  condemnation  from  one  gen- 
eration to  another,  scarcely  destroyed  this  office  in  eleven 
centuries.  At  the  ultimate  obliteration,  however,  all  was 
dead  or  dying  of  this  true  apostolic  institution.  It  was 
the  darkest  hour  just  before  the  dawn  of  day  in  the  re- 
vival of  letters. 

If  the  o-reat  Reformation  had  been  half  as  much  con- 
cerned  for  the  reconstruction  of  a  primitive  visibility  as 
for  the  definition  of  doctrines,  it  would  not  have  failed 
quickly  to  restore  the  deaconship  to  the  plane  on  which  it 
was  placed  and  left  by  "  the  seven  "  gifted  men  to  whom 


THE  DEACONS.  393 

it  was  entrusted  by  the  first  disciples.  There  it  was 
made  male  and  female,  catholic  as  the  new  dispensation 
it  served  ;  apostolic  inspiration  promptly  recognized  and 
enrolled  the  oiBce  of  woman.  But  the  Reformers  were 
behind  the  age  in  being  contented  to  leave  the  servitors 
of  the  synagogue  as  they  had  been  till  the  Grecians  com- 
plained of  their  widows  being  neglected  in  the  daily  min- 
istration. Yet  the  new  life,  "  powers  of  the  world  to 
come,"  rekindled  in  the  Reformation  needs  no  "  seven  " 
"  over  this  business  "  to  reconstruct  the  office  and  to  re- 
store the  women  whom  the  apostles  once  for  all  desig- 
nated and  commended  for  official  adaptation.  Their 
claim  is  strong  enough  to  be  self-asserted  and  they  are 
a  law  to  themselves,  instinct  and  inspirited  with  all  the 
analogies  of  that  gospel  which  has  made  them  anew.  It 
is  no  usurpation  of  office,  but  the  redemption  of  office, 
for  them  to  organize  a  corporate  existence  of  their  own 
which  will  require  the  normal  authority  of  the  Church 
to  follow  if  it  fail  to  lead.  Already  its  male  deaconship 
is  comparatively  idle,  being  superseded  by  the  voluntary- 
ism of  woman. 

Idleness  of  the  deacons,  either  male  or  female,  at  such 
a  time  as  this,  when  we  are  confronted  in  the  world  with 
the  gravest  problems  of  modern  civilization — the  man- 
agement of  work  and  money  for  the  good  of  men  and 
the  glory  of  God — will  put  to  hazard  the  triumphs  of 
the  gospel  itself.  These  problems  baffle  the  wisdom  of 
men  all  the  world  over,  and  the  confusion  of  tongues 
through  every  department  of  human  power,  legislative, 
judicial  and  executive,  only  alarms  us  with  dark  un- 
certainty for  the  result.  Against  the  equities  of  capital 
organizations  are  everywhere  contrived  by  the  poor  to 
elevate  labor  and  paralyze  the  wealth  which  employs  it, 


394  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

with  even  the  prostration  of  industries  unless  the  work- 
inffman  succeeds  to  the  whole  extent  of  his  unreasonable 
demands.  On  the  other  hand,  riches  are  petrified  and 
stand  aloof  from  the  suiFerings  of  poverty  occasioned  by 
its  own  default.  It  is  not  in  human  nature  to  relieve 
the  poor  and  encourage  their  industry  when  they  are  in 
arras  of  hostility  against  the  enterprise  which  feeds  them. 
Passions  mutually  inflamed  thus  by  mutual  misunder- 
standing cannot  be  allayed  by  the  intervention  or  arbi- 
tration of  men  with  maxims  of  uninspired  wisdom. 

"Never  man  spake  like  this  Man"  who  said,  "All 
things  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men  should  do  to 
you,  do  ye  even  so  to  them  :  for  this  is  the  law  and 
the  prophets."  This  Golden  Rule  is  given  to  the 
Church  by  her  Head,  and  the  hands  in  which  the 
Church  has  put  it  with  authorized  application  are  the 
deacons,  her  financial  ministers,  her  guardians  of  the 
poor,  her  committee  of  contact  with  secular  interests 
and  secular  needs.  Mutual  claim  and  mutual  conces- 
sion, the  sum  of  this  rule,  require  a  mutual  conscience 
which  only  the  religion  of  Christ  will  quicken  and  cul- 
tivate. When  systems  of  human  government  crumble 
to  ruin  and  become  dissolved  into  first  principles,  they 
start  to  better  life  again  only  in  the  cradle  which  Chris- 
tianity rocks  with  her  conservatism.  So  in  governments 
which  stand  by  her  help  the  social  and  economical  dis- 
asters which  occur  so  often  will  be  remedied  only  by  her 
application  of  the  Golden  Rule ;  and,  as  this  requires 
tact  more  than  teaching,  so  that  ministry  of  religion 
which  is  accustomed  to  handle  temporal  things  will 
become  a  chief  instrumentality  for  controlling  civil  dis- 
orders.    This  moral  side  of  "distribution"  is  mighty. 

Now,  the  natural  supremacy  in  tact  confessedly  be- 


THE  DEACONS.  395 

longs  to  woman  ;  and  when  the  grace  of  the  Spirit  and 
the  gift  of  office  combine  with  her  touch  to  relieve  the 
wretched  at  home  and  to  send  the  gospel  abroad,  we  have 
at  once  the  best  efficiency  and  the  fairest  adornment  of 
Christian  benevolence.  Why,  then,  should  the  visible 
Church  refuse  or  delay  to  restore  the  deaconess  in  eccle- 
siastical form  to  her  own  organization  ?  Should  we  leave 
the  corporate  power  of  her  combinations  to  wander  about 
in  exterior  transactions  and  eccentric  orbits,  like  the  union 
of  trades  and  the  adventures  of  knights  and  the  fitful 
conclaves  of  anarchy  and  communism,  and  that,  too, 
when  the  male  diaconate  is  at  ease  in  Zion,  having  little 
or  nothing  to  do  in  the  recognized  duties  of  this  primitive 
order  ?  The  fact,  familiar  now,  that  the  deacon's  work  is 
done  so  much  by  women  is  a  sufficient  answer  to  that 
plausible  objection  to  the  revival  and  continuance  of  a 
female  diaconate  which  has  prevailed  so  long  on  the 
surface  of  thought  in  the  Church — that  her  office  be- 
longed to  the  ancient  jealousy  of  sexes  in  the  East, 
which  forbade  the  social  freedom  of  intercourse  that 
now  and  here  obtains.  The  assumption  is  not  sup- 
ported by  authentic  history ;  and  if  it  were,  the  change 
in  Western  civilization,  wliich  freely  mingles  the  sexes 
together  in  the  circles  of  religious  and  refined  society, 
only  makes  it  the  more  expedient  that  sexes  should  be 
visibly  combined  in  working  under  that  official  name 
which  in  Scripture  is  both  male  and  female,  recon- 
structed because  "widows  were  neglected  in  the  daily 
ministration." 

A  normal  unison  like  this  would,  of  course,  mean  a  com- 
mon subordination  to  the  authority  of  elders,  which  in 
our  system  governs  the  diaconate  as  well  as  the  member- 
ship in  the  way  of  direction,  review  and  control.     Only 


396  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  distributiou  of  alms  to  the  poor  is  the  original  and 
indefeasible  discretion  of  deacons,  which  the  elders  may 
advise  merely,  without  subjecting  to  their  authority, 
original  or  appellate,  the  actual  charities  of  this  nature 
dispensed  by  deacons.  This  measure  of  independence 
will  ever  be  sufficient  to  sustain  the  dignity  of  an  office 
born  of  servitude  anciently,  and  in  the  fulness  of  time 
emancipated  and  promoted  as  the  right  arm  of  benevo- 
lence in  the  Christian  Church.  The  apostolic  latitude 
and  completeness  conferred  on  this  order  by  a  ministry 
of  gifts  must  ever  abide  the  latitude  of  both  sexes  and 
the  completeness  of  distribution  for  a  whole  world. 
There  should  be,  therefore  and  accordingly,  an  organ- 
ized unity,  recognized  and  controlled  by  the  Church  in 
her  judicatories,  which  would  expunge  from  her  present 
constitution  but  one  word,  "  male,"  in  the  membership 
from  which  deacons  are  chosen — that  masculine  objection 
which  hinders  thousands  of  Presbyterians  now  from  elect- 
ing women  as  well  as  men  to  that  very  office  which  other- 
wise women  will  carry  for  themselves,  outside  of  the 
Church  proper,  to  do  proper  Church  work. 

We  contemplate  the  same  necessity  in  all  the  cate- 
gories of  duty  that  can  be  assigned  to  a  Christian 
diaconate ;  not  one  of  them  can  be  performed  completely 
without  woman  associated  in  the  exercise  of  functions. 
Ever  since  the  "  young  men "  carried  out  for  burial 
the  dead  bodies  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira  duties  of 
which  males  only  were  capable  have  been  detached 
from  this  office  and  assigned  to  sextons,  acolytes  or 
subdeacons,  as  was  most  expedient  for  any  particular 
church.  It  is  only  the  sublime  functions  consecrated 
by  the  Saviour's  lips,  the  apostles'  commands  and  the 
directions  of  Philip  and  Stephen  that  remain  through 


THE  DEACONS.  397 

all  time  to  be  ministered  by  scriptural  deacons ;  and  in 
every  one  of  these,  to  be  well  done,  there  must  be  female 
associates  in  the  office.  Any  comprehensive  detail  may 
suffice  to  indicate  this. 

(1)  One  of  these  duties — and  the  most  ancient,  in- 
deed, which  descends  from  the  Old-Testament  ecclesia — 
is  to  keep  order  in  the  sanctuary  during  the  solemnities 
of  worship  and  instruction.  Thus,  at  Nazareth  and  the 
beginning  of  our  Lord's  own  ministry  in  the  synagogues 
of  Galilee,  the  "minister" — a  deacon  under  the  name  of 
a  synonym — "delivered  unto  him  the  book"  when  he 
"  stood  up  for  to  read ;"  and  when  he  himself  had  read, 
"  he  closed  the  book  and  gave  it  again  to  the  minister, 
and  sat  down."  The  figure  of  this  one  fact,  a  part  for 
the  whole,  indicates  a  class  of  duties  within  the  house 
of  God  which  must  be  ministered  by  women  as  well  as 
by  men  in  dealing  with  both  sexes  of  the  congregation. 
The  proprieties  of  reverence  and  godly  fear  to  be  ob- 
served and  enforced  according  to  the  Westminster  Di- 
rectory, as  well  as  ancient  "  constitutions,"  are  to  be 
prompted  still :  "  Forbearing  to  read  anything,  except 
what  the  minister  is  then  reading  and  citing;  abstain- 
ing from  all  whisperings,  from  salutations  of  persons 
present  or  coming  in ;  and  from  gazing  about,  sleeping, 
smiling,  and  all  other  indecent  behavior."  In  all  civil- 
ized places  these  improprieties  cannot  be  prevented  and 
dare  not  be  reproved  by  men  only,  whether  deacons, 
elders  or  preachers,  without  women  of  influence,  whether 
in  office  or  not,  pervading  the  assembly  with  faithful  ob- 
servation and  gentle  dissuasion.  In  performing  officially 
this  important  function  at  the  assemblies  of  God's  people 
deaconesses  originally,  it  is  said,  distributed  the  whole 
congregation,   obliging    males   to   sit  on    one    side    and 


398  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

females  on  the  other,  that  the  double  diaconate  might 
the  better  keep  good  order  in  public  worship. 

(2)  Watching  and  visitation  outside  of  the  sanctuary 
is  another  important  class  of  duties,  which  require  both 
the  deacon  and  the  deaconess  to  perform  them  adequately 
at  all.  Elders  are  to  be  vigilant  in  exercising  discipline 
upon  the  wayward  and  the  offending ;  but  the  deacons 
also  are  to  inspect  the  conduct  in  temporal  things,  and 
to  report  the  delinquencies  and  misdemeanors  which 
trouble  the  flock  and  discredit  the  gospel  in  its  contact 
with  the  world.  They  are  thus  to  be  the  eye  and  the 
ear  of  the  bishop,  as  they  were  anciently  regarded — the 
messengers  and  committee  of  vigilance  for  pastor  and 
elders.  But  men  alone  can  do  this  to  a  very  partial 
extent.  They  cannot  explore  the  realm  of  gossip  or 
the  intricacies  of  scandal  or  the  delicacy  of  crises  where 
offences  are  to  be  prevented;  and  it  is  honorable  to  wo- 
man that  without  contamination  she  may  pass  through 
observations  and  discoveries  of  evil  which  men  could 
never  make,  and  therefore  she  is  an  indispensable  wit- 
ness for  the  guidance  of  judicial  administration.  When 
her  office  was  discontinued  in  the  Catholic  Church,  dis- 
cipline was  ruined.  The  secrets  of  the  confessional  and 
the  sale  of  indulgences  followed  the  suppression  of  dea- 
conesses with  logical  sequence.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
deaconess  may  be  as  the  eye  and  the  ear  to  every  paro- 
chial bishop  in  giving  him  notice  of  sickness  and  dis- 
tress among  the  people  of  which  otherwise  he  could  not 
know  to  come  in  time  with  the  consolations  which  his 
office  administers;  and  many  a  family  has  been  alienated 
from  the  pastor  by  his  tardiness  in  coming,  which  would 
have  been  prevented  by  the  watchfulness  of  a  faithful 
deaconess. 


THE  DEACONS.  399 

(3)  Another  class  of  duties  are  those  of  hospitality, 
and  here  woman  is  indispensably  an  officer  "  following 
every  good  work."  Deacons  may  gather  in  the  strangers, 
but  without  a  deaconess  to  entertain  them,  to  ''  lodge 
strangers"  and  "wash  the  saints'  feet,"  and  "diligently" 
to  perform  the  true  rites  of  hospitality,  but  few  guests 
will  turn  out  to  be  "angels  unawares."  In  this  category 
of  diaconate  service  there  is  increasing  need  of  Christian 
hostelry,  appointed  places  of  accommodation  where  the 
benevolence  of  the  Church  to  strangers  has  an  open 
house  for  all  occasions,  social  freedom  and  sure  supply 
for  any  varieties  of  need  among  the  strangers.  Private 
entertainment  in  families  must  be  always  a  precarious 
good  on  account  of  inconvenience  or  inability — possi- 
bilities which  diminish  more  and  more  the  spontaneous 
hospitality  of  our  fathers  in  proportion  to  tlie  facilities 
of  travel,  the  frequency  of  conventional  occasions  and 
the  exactions  of  ceremony  in  modern  life.  Probably 
the  hospitable  heart  of  piety  has  abated  also  in  conse- 
quence of  the  manifold  surfaces  of  social  intercourse  in 
contrast  with  the  simplicity  of  ancient  life,  and  with  the 
cradle  of  our  own  life  in  a  generation  before  us.  But 
all  these  causes  of  change  and  abatement  in  the  spirit 
of  charity  must  be  countervailed  by  functions  of  office 
in  charitv  which  will  make  it  more  than  ever  a  "  busi- 
ness"  in  the  hands  of  Phoebes.  What  is  lessened  in 
the  fountain  may  be  increased  by  the  tribute  of  streams 
below  it  with  skilled  labor  in  directing  them ;  and  wis- 
dom in  such  benefaction  calls  for  the  deaconess. 

(4)  The  diaconate  is  not  a  domestic  service  in  the 
Church  only  :  it  is  also  foreign  missionary  and  ubiqui- 
tous. The  name  alone  of  "deacon" — meaning  urgency 
of  service — signifies  to  be  in  haste  and  away,  serving  a 


400  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ransomed  Church  by  the  spread  of  this  offered  ransom  to 
the  ends  of  the  earth.  Expansiveness  is  another  charac- 
teristic bestowed  upon  the  office,  when  a  ministry  of  gifts 
at  the  birth  of  missions  took  hold  of  it  with  supervision. 
"The  Dispersion"  of  Grecian  Jews  doubtless  went  home 
throughout  Asia  to  publish  the  piety  and  the  philan- 
thropy of  that  renovated  order  at  Jerusalem  which  had 
silenced  all  complaint  and  satisfied  every  want  of  the 
stranger  with  their  liberal  benefactions.  So  they  began 
to  send,  and  so  continued  to  send,  as  we  see  in  the  last 
paragraph  of  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Romans,  where  the 
order  had  sent  themselves  as  well  as  their  charities  in 
goodly  number.  And  these  were  greeted  there  as  a 
female  diaconate.  Wherever,  in  any  age,  the  relief  and 
the  elevation  of  woman  are  procured  by  the  gospel,  there 
cultivated  women  at  home  who  enjoy  its  blessings  are 
the  main  instrumentality  of  promulgation. 

Facts  demonstrate  that  either  virtually  or  in  form 
woman  must  be  trusted  with  collection  and  distribution 
in  raising  means  for  missions  both  at  home  and  abroad. 
Why  she  is  not  commissioned,  as  man  is,  with  a  name 
and  a  place  in  the  walls  of  this  house — "  an  everlasting 
name  that  shall  not  be  cut  off" — is  the  wonder  and  the 
shame  of  our  tardiness.  All  these  four  classifications 
of  duty  show  that  woman  must  indispensably  be  a 
partner,  and  the  great  movements  of  the  kingdom  at 
this  time  show  her  help  as  fast  becoming  the  largest 
volume  of  benevolence.  It  should  be  regulated  help, 
consolidated  resources,  governed  responsibilities,  char- 
tered recompenses  and  a  titled  "honor;"  otherwise,  the 
titular  significance  of  deacons  will  be  that  of  a  beggared 
heraldry  among  us.  They  seem  to  have  little  or  nothing 
to  do  at  present.     The  "  male  "  member  is  idle,  for  the 


THE  DEACONS.  401 

most  part,  and  the  busy  females  of  this  house  are  sup- 
porting him,  actually  doing  his  work  more  and  better 
than  he  can  do  it,  and  yet  they  are  not  allowed  to  share 
his  title — even  the  nominal  credit  of  a  name  which  is 
both  male  and  female  in  its  original.  Time  speeds  on 
to  make  words  to  be  things  or  to  make  them  obsolete. 
The  world  itself  will  compel  the  Church  to  be  con- 
sistent. 

26 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

'ORDINATION  TO  OFFICE. 

THE  continuance  of  the  Old-Testament  ecclesia,  or 
synagogue,  in  its  organic  forms  through  the  early- 
ages  of  Christianity  until  the  Council  of  Nice — fully 
three  centuries — can  be  marked  in  the  names  and  num- 
bers of  officers  not  only,  but  also,  and  especially,  in 
the  methods  of  investiture  with  office.  Even  after  the 
old  sacerdotalism  returned  and  official  parlance  became 
"  priest "  more  than  "  elder  "  in  designating  the  presby- 
ter and  the  parochial  bishop,  a  formal  induction  com- 
bined the  two  actions  of  election  and  the  laying  on  of 
hands.  The  Greeks  called  the  former  Xscporovca,  and 
the  latter  Xecpodeaia;  the  Latins  comprehended  both  in 
the  word  ordinatio.  Popular  election  is  undoubtedly  sig- 
nified by  the  former  of  these  Greek  words — literally 
"  stretching  out  the  hand  in  voting  " — and  the  second 
means  the  action  of  those  already  in  office  confirming 
the  popular  suffi'age  by  laying  their  hands  on  the  liead 
of  the  chosen.  In  the  Life  of  Alexander  Severus  (a.  d. 
222-235),  as  written  by  Lampridius,  we  are  told  that 
this  young  emperor,  whose  mother  is  said  (conjecturally) 
to  have  been  a  Christian,  ordered  the  scrutiny  of  the 
people  to  be  invoked  in  estimating  the  character  of 
those  he  designed  to  appoint  to  office  under  his  gov- 
ernment. His  words  given  by  the  historian  evidently 
402 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  403 

blend  the  synagogue  and  the  church  together  as  one  and 
the  same  visible  institution  in  this  particular :  "  He  said 
it  was  a  miserable  thing  that  when  the  Christians  and  the 
Jews  observed  this  method  of  publishing  the  names  of 
their  priests  before  they  were  ordained,  the  like  care 
should  not  be  taken  about  the  governors  of  provinces,  with 
whom  the  lives  and  fortunes  of  men  were  entrusted."  * 
It  is  here  plainly  suggested  that  the  formal  grace  of 
office  among  Christians,  as  well  as  among  Jews,  emanated 
from  the  people  conditionally  and  primarily  as  well  as 
from  the  powers  above  them  in  the  nomination  and 
ultimate  confirmation. 

Both  history  and  process,  therefore,  must  be  noticed 
in  giving  an  accurate  account  of  that  introduction  to 
Christian  office  which  we  call  ordination.  Instead  of 
being  a  mystery  or  a  sacrament  or  an  impalpable  some- 
thing which  one  man  has  and  another  has  not,  imparted 
on  a  peculiar  occasion,  it  is  transparently  a  matter  of 
fact  which  common  sense  can  read  and  understand. 
It  is  that  solemnity  in  which  one  is  set  apart  from  the 
universal  priesthood  of  believers  to  a  special  ministry  in 
the  Church  of  Christ.  It  is  both  visible  and  invisible 
in  its  nature,  just  like  the  Church  itself.  If  it  were 
only  visible,  it  would  not  be  fit  for  the  "mystery  of 
godliness;"  if  it  were  only  invisible,  it  would  belong 
to  a  different  life  in  another  world.  Extreme  simplifi- 
cation cannot  express  it,  and  logical  finesse  cannot  de- 
fine it. 

Looking  at  the  nature  of  such  a  consecration  when 
it  is  complete  and  unquestionably  valid,  five  distinct 
elements  may  be  distinguished  in  making  out  the  re- 
sult : 

*  See  Lardner's  Works,  vol.  iv.  p.  178. 


404  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

1.  The  gifts  or  aptitudes  bestowed  by  the  Head  of  the 
Church  upon  the  candidate.  Rom.  xii.  8 ;  Eph.  iv. 

2.  The  desire  awakened  by  the  Holy  Ghost  for  the 
exercise  of  such  a  callino;.  1  Tim.  iii.  1. 

3.  This  desire  tested  in  the  course  of  preparation 
made  by  education,  experience  and  the  formation  of 
character. 

4.  Appreciation  by  the  people  in  having  no  objection, 
but  rather  approval,  to  make,  and  indicated  either  by 
immediate  voting  or  by  representative  action. 

5.  Public  and  formal  confirmation  by  the  act  and 
declaration  of  those  already  in  office,  represented  by 
a  presiding  officer  who  is  authorized  to  make  official 
announcement. 

The  first  three  of  these  elements  may  be  assumed 
either  as  sufficiently  obvious  or  as  belonging  more  to 
the  studies  of  pastoral  theology  ;  the  fourth  may  be 
largely  inferred  from  principles  already  presented  more 
or  less  directly.  The  people,  parents  and  children,  con- 
stitute the  Church  as  a  visible  body.  To  receive  and 
accept  an  office  is  one  of  the  cardinal  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  membership  in  the  Church.  The  depository  of 
power  must  ultimately  be  ascertained  there  in  the  body 
which  inspiration  describes  to  be  "a  royal  priesthood, 
an  holy  nation,  a  peculiar  people."  Theocracy  itself 
called  upon  all  the  tribes  of  Israel  to  signify  assent  to 
the  choice  of  Levi  in  the  consecration  of  persons  to 
service  in  the  sanctuary,  and  it  is  not  merely  at  the 
installation  of  a  man  already  ordained  that  the  popular 
vote  is  made  an  integral  part  of  the  process :  it  is  prior 
and  deeper,  as  an  element  in  the  separation,  for  those 
who  work  with  their  hands  to  subsist  themselves  and 
others  have  a  natural  right  to  say  who  these  others  shall 


ORDINATION  TO  OFFICE.  405 

be ;  aud  if  they  are  to  be  iuvested  with  any  office  which 
allows  them  to  work  also  in  the  ordinary  productions  of 
labor,  it  must  be  one  which  bears  immediately  on  the 
fellow-members  concurrently  with  them  in  pursuits  of 
industrial  life.  And  because  of  this  concernment  there 
is  a  reasonable  franchise  of  consent  to  be  obtained  for 
non-producing  members.  In  short,  there  is  no  func- 
tional economy  under  the  sun,  physical  or  moral,  with- 
out the  level  of  some  reciprocal  action  between  claim 
and  consent,  office  and  sutfrage.  Any  practical  incon- 
venience may  be  avoided  by  representation,  aud  yet  this 
representation  must  not  be  out  of  sight,  remote  from  the 
people  and  but  constructively  found. 

Imposed  representation  is  only  factitious  and  cannot 
endure.  Even  the  apostles,  who  represented  the  people 
at  first  by  appointment  of  our  Lord,  without  any  popular 
election,  hastened  to  begin  organization  by  votes  of  the 
people  (Acts  vi.),  and  this  not  to  relieve  themselves  of 
a  troublesome  responsibility,  but  to  make  a  spiritual 
division  of  labor  in  which  the  people  were  immedi- 
ately represented  by  officers  of  their  own  choice.  And 
soon  afterward,  at  Antioch,  as  prophets  and  teachers 
were  ministering  to  the  Lord  and  fasting,  the  Holy 
Ghost  said  to  them,  "  Separate  me  Barnabas  and  Saul, 
for  the  work  whereunto  I  have  called  them,"  and  this 
work  proved  to  be  the  organization  of  churches  through 
Asia  Minor,  in  which  elders  were  ordained  by  the  people 
voting  {.Xscf)OTourjaai'T£(;),  with  confirmation  by  apostles 
ministered  on  their  visitation  when  returning,  after  the 
people  had  an  opportunity  of  "  looking  out "  for  them- 
selves to  choose.  Acts  xiv.  23.  We  cannot  accept  the 
interpretation  of  the  Greek  word  here  given  by  Selden 
— in  which  he  is  followed  by  Vitringa — that  the  two 


406  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

distinct  acts  in  ordination,  election  and  confirmation,  are 
blended  together  as  one  in  the  hands  of  apostles  them- 
selves on  this  occasion.  Granting  that  the  ordination 
was  their  act,  the  mode,  the  persons  chosen  and  the 
process  of  choosing  may  well  be  indicated  in  the  terms 
of  expression :  the  language  has  other  words  for  mere 
appointment.  The  Authorized  Version  is,  "  Had  or- 
dained them  elders  in  every  church  ;"  the  recent  Revised 
Version  is,  "  When  they  had  appointed  for  them  elders 
in  every  church,"  Why  say  "  them  "  in  one  and  "  for 
them"  in  the  other  if  the  meaning  is  simply  they  or- 
dained or  appointed  elders  ?  Unless  we  understand  the 
figurative  gesture  expressed  by  the  word  "  stretching  out 
the  hand "  to  be  a  part  for  the  whole  proceeding,  the 
voting  of  the  people  conjointly  with  the  confirmation 
by  apostles — that  is,  the  latter  procuring  for  themselves 
a  designation  by  the  people  of  the  men  whom  they  ac- 
cordingly ordained — we  cannot  understand  the  phrase- 
ology here. 

It  is  true  that  the  general  sense  of  appointment  was 
accepted  as  a  secondary  aud  subsequent  one  for  the  term  ; 
but  it  cannot  be  that  apostles  engrossed  the  whole  action 
in  ordaining  elders,  and  that  the  people  had  less  privilege 
in  this  procedure  than  in  the  appointment  of  deacons, 
where  divided  action  is  marked  with  such  emphatic  dis- 
tinctness. Surely  the  primordial  pattern  of  ordination 
at  Jerusalem  was  not  lost  in  Asia,  and  the  people  of  the 
Church  were  not  excluded  from  voting  for  governors, 
when  they  had  been  previously  called  to  "  look  out 
among  themselves"  for  servants  of  the  Church.  The 
primary  sense  undoubtedly  is  to  "appoint  by  vote;" 
and  if  the  word  for  "voting"  is  used  to  express  the 
whole  transaction,  we  should  allow  at  least  an  allusion 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  407 

or  part  of  the  meauiug  to  be  suffrage  by  the  people, 
who  were  doubtless  better  acquainted  with  the  meu  to 
be  selected  tliau  were  Baruabas  and  Saul. 

We  are  told  by  Clement  of  Rome  in  his  First  Epistle 
to  the  Corinthians — the  purest  fragment  of  all  patristic 
literature — that  the  first  ordinations  of  bishops  and  dea- 
cons were  done  in  the  same  way  by  the  apostles,  and 
that  they  were  first  proved,  and  then  appointed.  This 
probation  is  called  by  him  '-testing  in  the  Spirit"  or 
"  by  the  Spirit,"  with  evident  allusion  to  the  direction 
of  the  apostles  given  to  the  people  at  the  election  of 
deacons :  "  Look  ye  out  among  you  seven  meu  of  honest 
report,  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  wisdom,"  There 
was  probation,  therefore,  made  by  the  people  themselves, 
as  well  as  by  the  ordainers,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
Christian  Church  in  testing  the  fitness  of  candidates  for 
any  office.  Later  Fathers  express  the  probation  by  in- 
sisting on  all  appointments  made  to  be  done  in  the 
presence  of  the  people,  to  give  opportunity  to  any  one 
among  them  for  making  objection  or  signifying  ap- 
proval. And  sometimes  the  acclamations  of  the  assem- 
bly would  overwhelm  the  pleasure  of  ordainers  them- 
selves, and  compel  them  to  consecrate  the  nominee  of  a 
multitude.  Even  the  aristocratic  Cyprian,  after  elders 
began  to  be  called  "  priests,"  insisted  that  every  ordina- 
tion should  be  performed  in  this  way  :  "  God  commands 
a  priest  to  be  appointed  in  the  presence  of  all  the  assem- 
bly— that  is,  he  instructs  and  shows  that  the  ordination 
of  priests  ought  not  to  be  solemnized  except  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  people  standing  near,  that  in  the  pres- 
ence of  the  people  either  the  crimes  of  the  wicked  may 
be  disclosed  or  tlie  merits  of  the  good  may  be  declared  ; 
and   the   ordination,  which    shall   have  been    examined 


408  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

by  the  suffrage  and  judgment  of  all,  may  be  just  and 
legitimate."  *  Such  is  the  strong  tradition  of  a  popu- 
lar element  in  any  ordination  to  New-Testament  office. 
And  this  has  ever  been  secured  by  an  antecedent 
preparation  of  the  candidate,  in  the  good  providence 
of  God,  for  the  favor  and  confidence  of  the  people. 
There  must  be  under  observation,  directly  or  indirectly, 
among  the  people  some  prerequisite  fitness  they  can  trust 
in  winning  their  suffrage.  So  in  the  year  374,  when 
Auxentius,  bishop  of  Milan,  died .  and  the  Arians  at- 
tempted to  elect  one  of  their  own  party  as  the  successor, 
a  tumult  with  the  orthodox  people  became  a  riot  in  the 
church,  and  Ambrose,  governor  of  Liguria,  residing  in 
Milan,  had  to  come  and  quell  it  with  his  power.  A 
little  child  cried  out,  when  he  appeared,  "  Ambrose ! 
Bishop  !"  and  presently  the  whole  mob  cried  out,  "■  Let 
him  be  the  bishop  !"  He  had  been  well  known  there 
for  his  excellent  probity  and  skill  as  a  civil  ruler,  and 
the  Church  accepted  the  nomination  made  even  in  this 
rude  way.  He  was  forthwith  baptized,  giving  up  his 
wealth  and  his  worldly  honors  for  the  sacred  office,  and, 
being  soon  after  consecrated  with  appropriate  ceremonies, 
he  became  one  of  the  most  devoted,  conservative  and 
useful  bishops  that  ever  adorned  the  Latin  Church. 
But  far  better  than  this  accidental  and  exceptional  way 
of  popular  election  is  the  preliminary  probation  of  can- 
didates devised  in  modern  education.  The  method  of 
licentiate  itinerancy  before  ordination  has  hardly  ever 
failed  to  work  out  the  discovery  of  a  man's  fitness  or 
unfitness  in  ascertaining  the  nomination  of  one  who  is 
heard  gladly  by  the  people,  or,  on  the  contrary,  a  sea- 
sonable discontinuance    of   probation    by   revoking  the 

*  Cyprian's  Epistle  67. 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  409 

license  when  he  is  seen  to  have  little  or  no  favor  with  the 
people.  A  eandida'te  for  the  ministry  should  therefore 
quit  the  cloister  as  soon  as  he  quits  the  college,  and 
should  manifest  his  gifts  to  the  people  of  the  church  as 
much  as  possible  in  consistency  with  training  by  study ; 
and  especially  if  the  practice  be  prevalent  of  contracting 
the  interval  between  license  and  ordination  to  few  days 
in  order  to  fledge  a  novitiate  quickly  for  evangelism 
at  home  or  a  mission  abroad  without  the  prior  test  of 
popularity,  he  should  begin  the  trial  of  his  gifts  before 
them  as  soon  as  he  begins  theological  study.  For  this 
element  of  popular  consent  is  more  ancient  than  are 
theological  seminaries,  and  is  too  sacred  to  be  strained 
out  of  ordination  by  haste  and  urgency  of  any  circum- 
stances. 

Chastened  popularity,  therefore,  is  a  prime  condition 
of  any  office  in  the  Church,  as  all  the  offices  are  em- 
braced in  the  scope  of  preaching,  and  we  may  briefly 
comprise  the  argument  for  this  in  the  following  propo- 
sitions : 

1.  The  very  nature  of  the  Church,  as  an  assembly  of 
the  faithful,  is  that  of  a  sacerdotal  republic.  Ex.  xix.  6; 
1  Pet.  ii.  9.  As  her  members  are  all  an  election  from 
the  world,  their  officers  are  an  election  from  themselves 
— a  chosen  few,  moved  by  the  Spirit,  named  by  the  peo- 
ple and  consecrated  by  the  vows  which  those  who  are 
already  in  office  administer  and  confirm  with  becoming 
gesture  and  declaration  to  the  people.  Thus  consecrated, 
they  represent  both  God  and  man  by  the  functions  they 
exercise,  the  office  being  of  divine;  appointment  and  the 
ministration  of  it  for  the  good  of  humanity.  Such  is 
the  science  of  sacred  office  under  all  dispensations.  Even 
the  Levites,  as  observed  before,  when  emphatically  chosen 


410  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  God  as  a  whole  tribe  to  the  special  service  of  religion, 
and  so  permanently  invested  as  to  hold  their  commis- 
sion by  inheritance,  were  not  to  be  set  apart  without  the 
consent  of  all  Israel  assembled.  Num.  viii.  9,  10.  How 
much  more  consistent  is  it  with  the  larger  and  freer 
franchise  of  the  New-Testament  Church,  whose  minis- 
ters of  religion  go  up  alike  from  every  tribe  and  anew 
from  every  generation,  thus  to  require  a  distinct  consent 
of  the  people  before  the  last  formality  of  a  complete 
consecration  ! 

2.  Acts  of  the  Apostles  furnish  examples  of  the  same. 
Even  an  apostle  was  thus  chosen  to  fill  the  vacancy  left 
by  Judas.  One  apostle  stood  before  the  whole  assembly 
of  disciples  and  defined  the  qualifications  required  of  the 
man  to  be  chosen.  The  congregation  then  appointed — 
that  is,  nominated — two  candidates,  probably  the  only 
persons  known  to  possess  the  precise  qualifications  pre- 
mised ;  then  "  they  prayed,"  and  ''  they  gave  forth  their 
lots"  to  ascertain  the  divine  designation  which  was  to 
honor  the  popular  nomination  by  taking  one  of  their 
men.  If  so  much  was  made  of  popular  concurrence  in 
the  choice  of  Matthias  to  be  an  apostle,  under  the  direc- 
tion of  apostles  and  in  their  presence,  how  much  more 
does  it  pertain  to  the  appointment  of  ordinary,  and  per- 
manent officers  of  the  Church  that  are  supplied  by 
choice  without  a  lottery  or  any  special  interposition  of 
Heaven ! 

Accordingly,  the  next  example  is  more  significant, 
being  the  first  formal  appointment  in  supplying  the  need 
of  a  permanent  office,  the  election  of  the  seven  to  super- 
intend the  office  and  work  of  deacons.  The  apostles 
themselves  moved  first  in  this  matter,  to  indicate  that 
inspiration  designed  the  whole  transaction,  to  be  copied 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  411 

indeed  from  the  old  economy,  and  now  to  be  enlarged  in 
the  scope  and  dignity  of  service.  But  election  by  the 
people  was  to  be  still  the  same  as  it  had  l)een.  "  The 
whole  multitude  "  of  voters  were  called,  the  object  of 
the  call  was  explained,  the  qualifications  of  men  to  be 
chosen  were  prescribed,  a  vote  was  taken  to  approve  the 
measure,  and  then  the  people  in  a  "  multitude "  looked 
out  for  themselves  the  proper  men  to  be  elected ;  and 
after  this  ^ecpozopta  the  confirming  -^^sipodsaca  followed 
in  consummation. 

Bellarmine  objects  to  this  radical  proof  that  the  ulti- 
mate depository  of  church  power  is  in  the  people  when- 
ever the  Holy  Ghost  resides  among  them  and  within 
them,  by  saying  it  was  "a  small  material  concern"  which 
the  apostles  thus  left  to  the  people — the  service  of  tables 
and  the  disbursement  of  money  for  an  occasion.  We 
answer.  It  was  an  office  in  the  church  that  required  men 
"  full  of  the  Holy  Ghost  and  of  faith  "  to  man  it,  and 
spiritual  men  to  discern  and  elect  them — an  office  which 
Rome  continued  and  exalted  over  elders,  making  it  a 
preaching  office  higher  than  princes  and  everything  that 
is  rich  and  great  except  the  sacerdotal.  And  if  the 
people  were  to  concur  in  choosing  men  to  disburse  their 
charities  because  of  the  interest  they  have  in  that  ser- 
vice, why  should  they  not  much  more  be  allowed  to 
choose  men  for  the  greater  concernment  of  teaching  and 
ruling  them? 

Acts  of  the  people  are  inseparably  woven  with  acts 
of  the  apostles  both  before  and  after  the  miracles  of 
Pentecost;  so  that  only  the  witness-bearing  pre-eminence 
of  the  latter  in  "the  testimony  of  Jesus,"  to  Jew  and 
Gentile  made  them  founders  of  Christianity.  Tlieir 
mission  was  not  to  rule  or  to  make  rulers,  but  to  testify 


412  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  to  preach.  Men  who  believed  them  governed  them- 
selves, and  only  the  ministry  of  gifts  made  new  offices 
while  they  lived  which  were  transient  as  themselves. 
Even  before  the  supernatural  and  extraordinary  agencies 
of  that  epochal  fulness  of  time  had  passed  away,  and 
the  apostolic  representatives  of  the  people,  under  the 
great  commission  of  our  Lord,  were  done  with  their 
peculiar  work,  they  co-operated  with  the  body  of  the 
faithful  in  upholding  the  old  ecclesia,  with  its  popular 
forms  of  franchise  and  Presbytery,  and  immediately 
afterward  the  traces  of  popular  election  were  abundant 
in  the  primitive  organizations  of  uninspired  men. 

Clement  of  Rome,  the  first  and  best  of  the  apostolic 
Fathers,  in  his  genuine  and  authentic  epistle  to  the 
Corinthians — the  main  object  of  which  was  to  repress 
divisions  among  the  people  in  regard  to  their  officers, 
and  especially  teaching  elders — says,  in  allusion  to  the 
apostles,  "  We  are  of  opinion,  therefore,  that  those 
appointed  by  them,  or  afterward  by  other  eminent 
men,  loith  the  consent  of  the  whole  Church,  and  Avho 
have  blamelessly  served  the  flock  of  Christ  in  a  humble, 
peaceable  and  disinterested  spirit,  and  have  for  a  long 
time  possessed  the  good  opinion  of  all,  cannot  justly  be 
dismissed  from  the  ministry."  Ch.  xliv.  In  the  next 
century  (second)  Tertullian,  in  the  thirty-ninth  section 
of  his  Apology,  writes,  "The  tried  men  of  our  elders  pre- 
side over  us,  obtaining  that  honor  not  by  purchase,  but 
by  established  character"  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  the 
same  century,  says  in  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  his  3Iis- 
cellanies:  "Such  an  one  is  in  reality  a  presbyter  of  the 
church  and  a  true  deacon  of  the  will  of  God  if  he  do 
and  teach  what  is  the  Lord's — not  as  being  elected  by 
men   nor  regarded  righteous    because  a  presbyter,   but 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  413 

enrolled  in  the  Presbytery  because  righteous."  Cyprian, 
also,  in  the  third  century,  whose  churchly  tendencies  are 
prized  so  highly  by  churchmen  who  have  long  since 
eliminated  the  popular  element  in  ordination,  abounds 
in  notices  of  popular  voting  as  normally  connected  with 
the  solemnities  of  ordination.  In  writing  to  his  people 
at  Carthage  (Ep.  39)  he  speaks  of  some  old  venom 
against  ''your  suffrage  and  God's  judgment,"  meaning 
the  authority  which  had  made  him  a  bishop.  In  his 
fifty-fourth  letter,  addressed  to  Cornelius,  he  writes : 
"No  one,  after  the  divine  judgment,  after  the  suffrage 
of  the  people,  after  the  consent  of  the  co-bishops,  would 
make  himself  a  judge,  not  now  of  the  bishop,  but  of 
God."  In  his  sixty-seventh  epistle,  speaking  of  Sabi- 
nus,  a  colleague,  he  says  :  "  So  that  by  the  suffrage  of  the 
whole  brotherhood,  and  by  the  sentence  of  the  bishops, 
who  had  asseml)led  in  their  presence,  the  episcopate  was 
conferred  upon  him  and  hands  were  imposed  upon  him," 
etc. 

Thus  we  might  glean  expressions  through  all  the 
literature  of  early  and  aute-Niceue  Christianity  which 
mean  that  believing  people  are  the  basis  of  a  visible 
Church ;  that  the  commission  of  our  ascending  Lord, 
which  folded  in  its  volume  all  representation,  was 
bestowed  upon  them ;  that  the  first  and  immediate 
representatives,  being  named  by  himself  as  witnessing 
apostles,  were  careful  on  all  occasions  to  lean  upon  the 
suffrages  of  the  body ;  and  that  after  they  were  with- 
drawn from  the  field  the  succeeding  ministry  considered 
the  will  of  this  body  as  a  primal  consent  to  be  had  and 
distinctly  recorded  in  the  annals  of  ecclesiastical  pro- 
cedure. 

4.  The  wariness  enjoined  upon  evangelists  in  1  Tim. 


414  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

V.  22,  "  Lay  hands  suddenly  on  no  man,"  must  mean 
chiefly  waiting  on  the  people  for  the  attestation  of  char- 
acter which  they  only  can  make  in  their  opinions.  Gifts 
might  be  ascertained  quickly  by  one  already  in  office  and 
a  lone  ordainer  be  a  competent  judge ;  but  character  must 
lie  in  popular  estimation  and  be  certified  by  the  popular 
assent.  And  here  again  we  are  brought  round  to  the 
premises  from  which  we  started.  From  the  people 
themselves  must  be  the  reputation  evolved  as  a  rudiment 
in  the  title  without  which  no  power  on  earth  can  fairly 
appoint  any  man  as  a  teacher,  a  ruler  or  a  servant  in  the 
Church  of  Christ.  Hence  even  councils  were  employed 
to  regulate  the  ballot  or  method  in  which  the  popular 
will  should  be  united  with  the  clerical  authority  in  ordi- 
nation. The  Fourth  Council  of  Carthage  ordered  tliat, 
as  a  bishop  was  not  to  ordain  without  the  concurrence  of 
the  clergy,  so  also  should  he  seek  the  satisfaction  of  the 
people  :  "  Ita  civium  assensum  et  conniventiam  et  testi- 
monium quserat."  And  later  councils  ordered  the  viva- 
voce  voting  as  better  suited  to  call  out  the  assent  or  dis- 
sent of  the  people,  with  the  words,  d^co^  and  dvd^ioi;, 
than  the  primitive  "stretching  out  of  the  hand," — all 
this  to  manifest  how  the  scruple  descended  on  behalf 
of  popular  suifrage  even  after  this  equity  was  virtually 
buried  under  the  feet  of  a  hierarchy. 

It  was  this  ancient  and  uniform  choice  by  the  people 
which  led  to  the  rigid  necessity  of  ordaining  ministers 
of  the  gospel,  as  well  as  other  church-officers,  in  con- 
nection with  some  particular  locality  that  gave  title  to 
the  functionary.  With  singular  inconsistency,  the  Coun- 
cil of  Trent,  which  so  definitely  built  the  whole  Church 
upon  the  bishops,  and  one  line  of  bishops,  eliminating  all 
thought  of  the  people  from  the  conception  of  Church, 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  415 

insisted  with  special  enactment  on  the  necessity  of  some 
particular  place  being  connected  with  every  ofificial  in- 
vestment. Caste  has  not  a  local  habitation.  It  was  the 
notion  of  a  ministry  suited  to  the  people  and  resting  on 
the  will  of  the  people  in  each  particular  place  which 
stereotyped  the  usage  of  ordination  cum  titulo.  Protest- 
ants who  restore  immunities  to  the  people,  and  especially 
Presbyterians,  who  temper  these  rights  with  a  conserva- 
tive authority  of  elders  that  represent  the  people  as  ru lei's 
in  serving  them,  are  not  so  rigid  or  so  blind  on  this  point. 
It  is  with  them  a  living  and  reasonable  restriction  rather 
than  a  petrifaction.  Ordinations  with  us  are  often — per- 
haps too  often — made  sine  titulo;  that  is,  without  locating 
the  teaching  elder  in  a  particular  charge. 

In  the  earlier  generations  of  the  American  Church 
this  usage  was  not  allowed  in  cases  of  ordination,  be- 
cause it  put  out  of  sight  too  much  the  actual  vote  of  the 
people,  so  scriptural  and  just  and  long-continued.  The 
Presbytery  had  to  ask  the  Synod  for  permission  to  do 
so  in  exceptional  necessities.  Samuel  Stanhope  Smith, 
distinguished  in  the  history  of  Princeton  education,  a 
teacher  of  theology  here  before  a  seminary  existed,  de- 
sired to  be  ordained  by  the  Presbytery  of  Newcastle  in 
accepting  a  call  from  a  church  in  the  Presbytery  of 
Hanover.  The  Presbytery  consulted  the  Synod  of 
Philadelphia,  and  the  Synod  refused  because  the  vote 
of  the  people  in  making  the  call  was  too  far  away  from 
the  subsequent  imposition  of  hands  to  consist  with  the 
unity  and  completeness  of  the  proposed  ordination. 
They  must  be  seen  together  as  one  solemnity  with  two 
inseparable  elements,  and  the  people  must  vote  at  the 
ordination,  as  much  as  if  it  were  only  installation.  The 
greater  freedom  of  Presbyteries  now  has  been  occasioned, 


416  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

for  the  most  part,  by  the  imperative  necessity  of  mis- 
sions, which  predominate  wisely  and  well  in  the  usages 
of  Presbytery  at  home  and  abroad.  Ordinations  sine 
titulo  may  be  made  safely  among  us — 

First,  because  a  Presbytery  in  our  system  is  not 
sacerdotal  in  its  nature,  but  composed  entirely  of  rep- 
resentatives of  the  people.  Both  ministers  and  elders 
are  such,  and  what  the  people  do  by  them  they  do  by 
themselves,  in  fair  construction.  Ordaining  power  in 
them  is,  therefore,  competent,  as  no  prelate  is  to  combine 
what  the  Bible  conjoins — acts  of  the  apostles  and  acts  of 
the  people  together,  both  measure  and  mode  of  order 
according  to  the  Scriptures. 

Secondly,  because  ordination  is  only  means  to  an  end, 
and  therefore  may  be  shaped  in  any  way  best  calculated 
to  secure  that  end  when  circumstances  demonstrate  the 
necessity  of  an  exceptional  mode.  The  special  neces- 
sity of  missions,  descending  to  us  from  apostolic  times, 
must  retain  the  exceptional  peculiarities  of  a  formative 
state,  and  much  must  be  done  for  the  planting  of  churches 
at  the  first  which  should  not  be  continued  after  an  estab- 
lished organization. 

Thirdly.  Established  regulations  must  be  popular  and 
require  more  and  more  a  deference  to  the  AAdll  of  the 
people,  inasmuch  as  the  choice  of  their  will  becomes 
wiser  and  safer  by  the  general  instruction  which  stated 
ordinances  of  grace  will  certainly  diffuse.  The  cur- 
riculum of  a  theological  education  never  advances  faster 
than  the  intelligence  of  that  public  mind  which  it  is 
preparing  to  guard  and  to  guide;  and  the  country,  in 
every  corner  of  it,  is  quite  as  capable  as  is  the  city,  if 
not  more  so,  in  judging  the  merits  of  a  licensed  or  an 
unlicensed  preacher  who  comes  to  make  trial  of  his  gifts 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE,  417 

as  a  candidate  for  the  ministry  in  full  ordination.  The 
itinerancy  of  a  whole  year,  at  least,  should  be  assigned 
to  any  probationer,  however  gifted,  if  it  could  be  done, 
by  sending  him  to  vacant  churches  with  a  scale  of  ap- 
pointments made  in  advance  by  competent  authority,  to 
save  him  from  the  embarrassment  of  being  self-sent, 
with  the  appearance  of  scrambling  for  places.  Such 
arrangement  saves  the  people  also  from  the  embarrass- 
ment of  committing  themselves  more  or  less  to  the  man 
they  send  for  before  knowing  that  he  will  suit  them 
with  his  adaptations.  Small  denominations  have  adopted 
this  method  with  a  happy  success,  and  large  denomina- 
tions should  have  a  bureau  of  supplies,  with  similar 
management,  to  make  adjustments  wisely,  which  will 
at  once  relieve  and  circulate  the  probation  for  that 
popular  assent  which  the  solemnity  of  ordination  re- 
quires. Herein  is  the  visible  catholicity  of  our  calling: 
"  Ye  see  your  calling,  brethren,  how  that  not  many  wise 
men  after  the  flesh,  not  many  mighty,  not  many  noble 
are  called."  The  only  medium  in  which  Christianity 
can  live  and  breatlie  is  the  average  body  of  the  people. 

The  Laying  on  of  Hands. 

Popular  suffrage,  in  the  form  of  expressed  or  implied 
assent  of  those  who  are  to  be  served  by  the  functions  of 
any  office,  must  be  formally  ratified  by  those  already  in 
office,  either  of  the  same  or  of  a  higher  degree.  After 
and  along  with  the  y^etporovia,  or  gesture  of  voting, 
must  be  the  "j^sepodeaca,  or  confirmation  by  the  gesture 
of  recognition,  which  has  been  the  same  in  all  ages  of 
the  ecclesia,  Old  Testament  and  New,  laying  hands  on 
the  head  of  a  chosen  candidate  to  signify  the  human 
cognizance  of  a  divine  selection  and  the  notice  to  all 

27 


418  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

men  of  Avhat  God  has  entrusted  to  a  particular  man 
whom  he  has  qualified  and  sent  on  a  particular  service. 
This  requires,  of  course,  the  discernment  of  those  who 
are  qualified  to  judge  by  their  experience  in  exercising 
the  same  functions  as  well  as  by  their  spiritual  com- 
munion with  the  fountain  of  all  authority  in  the  Church 
of  Christ.  Added  to  this  intrinsic  propriety  is  the  rela- 
tive necessity  of  order  in  all  government  on  earth.  The 
seals  of  office  are  handed  over  by  the  outgoing  to  the 
incoming  official  as  a  spectacle  to  all  observers  of  an 
orderly  tradition.  The  right  hand  of  fellowship  is  ex- 
tended by  those  who  are  already  within  the  circle  of  a 
good  fraternity  in  the  welcome  offi^red  visibly  to  a 
newly-elected  accession. 

The  natural  fitness  of  this  final  action  sufficiently 
explains  the  nature  of  ordination — that  it  is  an  indica- 
tion rather  than  a  communication,  that  no  grace  of  office 
has  been  tied  to  its  procedure,  that  the  worthy  receiver 
is  by  no  "corporate  or  carnal  manner"  like  this  visible 
transaction  made  partaker  of  any  inward  grace  that  he 
had  not  realized  before  this  consummation  of  his  call. 
In  a  word,  ordination  is  not  a  sacrament  in  any  distinct 
or  proper  sense,  else  our  Lord  himself  would  have  made 
it  a  rite  in  his  own  ministry,  as  he  did  baptism  and  the 
Supper.  When  he  ordained  the  original  twelve,  it  was 
by  simple  appointment,  and  not  by  the  laying  on  of  his 
hands,  and  so,  also,  were  the  many  sent  forth  by  the 
Holy  Ghost  in  apostolic  times  commissioned  simply  by  a 
gift  of  office.  True,  the  novitiate  may  receive  a  special 
increment  of  grace  on  that  occasion,  like  any  other  in 
which  the  trial  of  his  faith  is  made  as  it  leans  upon  the 
promise,  "  Lo,  I  am  with  you  alway."  Whether  it  be 
ceremony,  hardship,  antagonism  or  conflict  in  the  minis- 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  419 

try,  it  is  all  the  same  in  deriving  virtue  from  the  Master 
according  to  our  faith.  Divine  appointment  on  record 
in  God's  word  is  indispensable  to  the  lodgment  of  special 
grace  in  any  rite,  and  even  when  so  appointed  the  min- 
istration to  us  must  be  that  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  who 
signifies  and  seals  sacrameutally,  in  water,  bread  and 
wine  only  as  these  are  set  apart  from  a  common  to  a 
sacred  use  by  positive  and  perpetual  injunction. 

When  Timothy  is  enjoined  to  "  lay  hands  suddenly 
on  no  man,"  we  have  the  remarkable  metonymy  which 
imports  three  things,  at  least ;  1.  That  there  should  be 
cautious  delay  on  the  part  of  the  ordainer,  and  cor- 
responding maturity  in  the  preparation  of  a  candidate; 
2.  That  the  ceremony  of  consecration  is  to  be  conducted 
by  one  or  more  already  in  office ;  and  3.  That  the  lay- 
ing on  of  hands  as  a  significant  action  should  be  con- 
tinued indefinitely  as  a  crowning  act  in  complete  ordina- 
tion. It  could  not  be  the  symbol  in  this  case  of  con- 
ferring extraordinary  gifts  alone,  as  some  allege ;  for, 
besides  the  fact  that  none  but  apostles  conferred  those 
gifts,  there  could  be  no  room  for  the  exercise  of  discretion 
on  the  part  of  an  evangelist :  not  even  apostles  could 
delay  when  moved  by  the  Holy  Ghost  to  act  as  an  in- 
strumentality for  that  purpose. 

That  this  gesture  of  recognition  was  designed  to  be 
ordinary  and  perpetual  in  the  tradition  of  office  may  be 
inferred  also  from  examples  in  the  I^ew-Testament  his- 
tory. Timothy's  own  ordination  was  "  with  the  laying 
on  of  the  hands  of  the  Presbytery"  (1  Tim,  iv.  14) 
— a  distinct  action,  obviously,  from  that  of  Paul  in 
laying  only  his  own  hands  on  Timothy,  as  we  have 
repeatedly  observed,  to  impart  a  gift  peculiar  to  that 
age,  the  extraordinary  faith  which  dwelt  in  his  mother 


420  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

and  his  grandmotlier,  2  Tim.  i.  6.  The  gift  so  minis- 
tered by  a  lone  apostle  the  recipient  is  exhorted  to  "  stir 
up  " — rekindle  as  with  hot  embers  turned  up  from  the 
ashes.  But  to  stir  up  an  office  would  be  solecism  in 
language.  In  regard  to  this  the  exhortation  is  entirely 
different,  importing  the  experience  of  all  ministers 
through  succeeding  time :  "  Endure  afflictions,  do  the 
work  of  an  evangelist,  make  full  proof  of  thy  minis- 
try." 2  Tim.  iv.  5.  Hence  the  propriety  of  the  apostle's 
charge  pertaining  to  ordination  —  *' Neglect  not,"  etc. 
"The  laying  on  of  hands,"  as  a  formality  of  induction, 
belongs  to  the  ordinary  and  perpetual,  therefore,  as  well 
as  the  extraordinary,  in  consecration  to  office.  At  the 
ordination  of  the  "  seven  "  (Acts  vi.)  the  same  formality 
was  observed.  And,  whether  we  regard  the  seven  as 
deacons  merely  or  more  than  deacons — a  ministry  of 
gifts  to  superintend  for  a  time  that  service,  the  ordinary 
and  the  extraordinary  blended  together — we  have  the 
Old-Testament  usage  of  this  gesture  initiated  for  in- 
definite duration  in  the  New.  And  so  familiar  did  this 
usage  become  that  the  apostle  Paul  seems  to  make  "lay- 
ing on  of  hands "  in  figure  a  name  for  office  itself, 
indicating  a  standing  ministry  in  the  church,  to  be  per- 
petual, as  are  the  fundamental  doctrines  of  baptism, 
resurrection  from  the  dead  and  eternal  judgment.  Heb. 
vi.  2. 

It  being,  therefore,  obviously,  a  permanent  usage, 
according  to  Scripture,  we  ought  distinctly  to  understand 
what  it  means.  We  derive  the  significance  of  this 
action  from  the  origin  of  its  use  in  the  Old  Testament. 
When  the  dying  Jacob,  with  the  spirit  of  prophecy  upon 
him,  proceeded  to  bless  the  sons  of  Joseph,  he  guided  his 
hands  wittingly,  though  too  blind  to  see,  and,  regardless 


ORDINATION  TO  OFFICE.  421 

of  their  owu  father's  wish  aud  suggestion,  laid  his  right 
liaud  on  the  head  of  the  younger  aud  his  left  hand  on 
the  head  of  the  elder — not  to  communicate  anything, 
but  to  indicate  only  what  the  divine  ius])iration  led  him 
to  discern  aud  impelled  him  to  utter  about  the  tribal 
destinies  of  the  grandchildren  under  his  hands.  Geu. 
xlviii.  14. 

When  the  Levites  were  chosen  to  wait  as  a  tribe  on 
the  service  of  religion,  a  special  consecration  to  the  Lord, 
the  whole  assembly  of  tribes  was  gathered  to  lay  their 
hands  upon  the  heads  of  these  brethren — not,  surely,  to 
impart  any  mystic  virtue  thereby,  but  to  indicate  the 
consent  of  all  Israel  that  this  tribe  should  be  taken 
wholly,  instead  of  the  first-born  of  every  family.  Num. 
viii. 

When  Joshua  was  to  be  set  apart  as  the  successor  of 
Moses,  it  was  said  to  the  latter,  "  Take  thee  Joshua,  the 
son  of  Nun,  a  man  in  whom  is  the  spirit,  and  lay  thine 
hand  upon  him  ;  and  set  him  before  Eleazar  and  before 
all  the  congregation,  and  give  him  a  charge  iu  their 
sight."  Num.  xxvii.  18.  Nothing  can  be  plainer  than 
that  here  was  merely  a  significant  declaration  by  the  use 
of  the  hand  that  an  appointment  had  been  already  made 
and  official  unction  already  imparted. 

The  ceremony  of  laying  hands  on  the  head  of  the 
victim  when  sin  was  publicly  confessed  and  atonement 
madt'  was  not  any  communication  of  human  sins  to  an 
irrational  brute,  but  an  expressive  indication  of  liability 
transferred  from  the  actual  sinner  to  the  legal  substitute 
typified  in  the  scape  or  the  immolated  beast. 

In  short,  all  the  various  expressions  of  this  act 
throughout  the  Old-Testament  Scriptures  may  be  re- 
duced to  this  radical  import  of  designation,  with  solera- 


422  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

nity  of  emphasis,  for  the  purpose  of  arresting  attention 
and  procuring  respect  for  some  one  already  appointed  of 
God.  The  Church,  being  herself  continued  identically, 
has  continued  the  same  usages  of  ordination,  attaching 
to  it  no  mystery,  realizing  in  it  no  communication,  find- 
ing in  it  no  descent  of  apostolic  virtue,  but  wearing  it 
ever  as  a  badge  of  office  to  note  and  recognize  the  call 
of  God  and  movement  of  his  Spirit,  and  the  resulting 
right  of  others  to-  take  part  in  the  same  ministry  of  rec- 
onciliation. Only  the  hands  of  our  Lord  himself,  like 
"the  hem  of  his  garment"  in  the  time  of  supernatural 
dealing,  could  impart  either  functions  of  life  or  grace  of 
office.  Even  his  Avonder-Avorking  apostles  would  ex- 
claim, "  Why  look  ye  so  earnestly  on  us,  as  though  by 
our  power  or  holiness  we  had  made  this  man  to  walk  ?" 
Their  nominal  successors  can  have  no  stream  of  virtue 
in  them  to  flow  higher  than  the  fountain.  The  hands 
of  a  prelate  are  not  more  potential  than  were  those  of 
Peter  and  John  "at  the  gate  of  the  temple  called  Beau- 
tiful." And  surely  now  they  cannot  be  in  their  im- 
position more  certainly  the  occasion  of  a  divine  presence 
and  touch  than  the  meeting  together  of  "  two  or  three  " 
ministers  in  a  Presbytery  to  conduct  the  solemnity  of 
ordination. 

From  our  simple  apprehension  of  the  rite  we  may 
gather  many  conclusions  of  practical  importance: 

1.  That  it  is  not  essential  to  the  validity  of  ordina- 
tion. Reverence  for  examples  in  the  Bible  and  respect 
for  the  usages  of  nearly  all  Christendom,  ancient  and 
modern,  as  well  as  the  becoming  naturalness  of  the 
action  itself  for  such  a  purpose,  ought  to  make  us  care- 
ful and  scrupulous  iu  the  conservation  of  this  form, 
while,  at  the  same  time,  we  should  not  forget  that  it  is 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  423 

only  a  form,  and  not  explicitly  commanded  or  appointed 
as  a  rite.  Any  officer  in  the  church,  from  the  highest  to 
the  lowest,  might  be  validly  inducted  without  the  laying 
on  of  hands  by  those  already  in  office  to  complete  the 
ceremony  of  ordination  when  either  by  mistake  or  prej- 
udice or  inconvenience  it  has  been  omitted.  The  first 
Book  of  Discipline  used  by  the  Church  of  Scotland 
dispensed  with  it  expressly,  saying,  "  Other  ceremonies 
except  fasting,  with  prayer,  such  as  laying  on  of  hands, 
we  judge  not  necessary  in  the  institution  of  the  minis- 
try." The  Methodist  Church  also  dispensed  with  it,  as 
we  understand,  for  a  century  of  their  distinct  organiza- 
tion. While  the  Presbyterian  constitutiou  now  requires 
it  in  the  ordination  of  ministers,  it  does  not  require  it  in 
the  ordination  of  ruling  elders  and  deacons,  although  the 
General  Assembly  of  1833  sanctioned  the  same  formality 
in  all  such  cases  when  it  is  preferred  by  any  particular 
church.  Convenience,  however,  as  well  as  consistency, 
should  be  consulted.  Everything  in  form  which  might 
produce  confusion  or  levity  in  the  circumstances  should 
be  avoided  when  it  is  not  enjoined. 

2.  A  second  inference  from  this  unraysterious  nature 
of  laying  on  the  hands  in  ordination  is  that  the  transac- 
tion of  Presbytery  which  orders  it  is  more  important 
than  the  ceremony  itself.  The  substantial  norm  of 
which  it  is  a  proper  sign  is  the  vote  of  a  representative 
Presbytery.  Mere  election  by  the  people,  though  called 
for  by  this  vote,  as  well  as  implied  in  it,  is  a  relative  as 
well  as  an  absolute  necessity  in  the  completeness  of  ordi- 
nation. It  must  relate  to  some  official  authority  already 
existing,  for  alone  it  would  be  only  revolution,  an  ex- 
treme necessity  without  law,  which  can  seldom  and 
hardly   ever   be  justified.     Even   reformation   is    both 


424  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

departure  from  and  quick  return  to  constituted  au- 
thority. It  is  every  way  a  reasonable  need  as  well  as 
a  positive  command  that  the  things  which  we  have 
learned  from  able  and  faithful  men  we  should  commit 
to  men  of  like  character  in  succeeding;  us — not  the  thinar, 
as  if  it  were  some  mystic  virtue  we  had  received  and 
were  bound  to  deliver  downward  with  a  sacramental 
charm  and  seal,  but  "  the  things  " — the  knowledge,  doc- 
trine, aptitude — we  are  to  commit  in  the  way  of  recog- 
nizing publicly  and  declaring  that  we  believe  such  per- 
sons are  taught  of  God  and  able  to  teach  others  also. 
This  declaration  is  made  both  to  God  and  to  man,  and 
by  the  usage  of  prayer  more  essentially  than  by  that  of 
imposing  hands.  It  is  made  partly  in  fasting  also, 
according  to  examples  in  Scripture.  And  these  three 
exercises  ought  to  be  inseparable,  conv^erging  in  the 
thought  of  recognition  invoked  and  announced  by  those 
already  in  office  that  the  candidate  is  called  of  God  to 
take  part  in  this  ministry  with  us. 

3.  A  third  inference  is  that  such  declaration  in  the 
symbolic  action  should  be  made  only  by  those  who  have 
the  power  of  order,  distinct  from  that  of  jurisdiction,  to 
perform  all  the  public  ceremonies  of  religion.  The  gest- 
ure in  question  is  intrinsically  soluble  in  words,  and 
therefore  only  ministers  of  the  word  whom  we  call 
"teaching  elders"  should  perform  it,  and  that  in  all 
cases  of  ordination  where  it  is  adojited  as  the  usage  to 
lay  hands  on  the  head  of  the  ruling  elder  and  the 
deacon  as  well,  these  concurring  in  the  action.  In- 
stances have  occurred  in  certain  branches  of  the  Pres- 
byterian family,  when  the  quorum  of  preachers  could 
not  be  present,  of  allowing  one  or  more  of  the  ruling 
elders  to  lay  hands  upon  tlie  head  of  a  minister  in  his 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  425 

ordination.  This  alternative  may  not  invalidate  the  cere- 
mony, indeed,  bnt  it  is  incongruous  and  might  lead  to 
confusing  the  due  order  of  God's  ''  house  and  family." 
It  is  enough  for  the  ruling  elder  to  vote  the  ordination, 
in  Session  or  in  Presbytery,  as  a  representative  of  the 
people,  but  he  is  not  in  every  office  nor  commissioned  to 
expound  the  nature  of  any  office  in  the  way  of  public 
instruction,  and  therefore  that  epitome  or  symbol  of 
such  instruction  which  we  see  in  the  laying  on  of  hands 
should  be  reserved  in  all  cases  to  the  ministers  of  the 
word,  not  excluding,  however,  the  actual  concurrence  of 
elders  or  deacons,  as  the  case  may  be,  when  addition  is 
made  to  their  own  order  respectively. 

4.  A  fourth  corollary  from  our  simple  apprehension 
of  a  complete  ordination  is  that  it  may  be  repeated  just 
as  often  as  there  is  need  of  a  new  and  solemn  notifica- 
tion to  the  Church  and  the  world  that  the  same  indi- 
vidual is  called  of  God  to  another  office  or  special  func- 
tion in  the  spiritual  commonwealth.  There  is  one 
ordination  for  the  deacon,  another  for  the  ruling  elder, 
a  third  for  the  teaching  elder — a  progression  which  has 
often  been  made,  and  which  may  often  be  made  again. 
The  form  is  always  the  same  when  properly  complete, 
and  distinction  is  made  only  in  the  vows  administered 
and  in  tlie  charge  given.  We  have  a  striking  example 
of  this  procedure  in  the  thirteenth  of  Acts,  where  men 
already  in  the  ministry — Barnabas  and  Paul — were  set 
apart  by  divine  direction,  with  fasting  and  prayer  and 
the  laying  on  of  hands,  for  even  a  special  mission  in 
which  they  were  employed  not  over  three  years.  Many 
similar  illustrations  may  be  gleaned  from  history.  In 
the  Wesleyan  polity  bishops  and  elders  are  the  same  in 
rank,  the  former  being  chosen  superintendents  of  the 


426  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

latter  for  the  sake  of  order  and  efficiency  in  service. 
Yet  when  an  elder  is  elected  to  their  episcopate  the 
Methodist  Episcopal  Church  give  him  another  ordina- 
tion in  form,  as  he  is  now  set  apart  to  a  special  and 
paramount  fuuctiou  supervening  on  the  eldership.  So, 
precisely,  though  inversely,  our  elders  have  one  ordina- 
tion as  rulers  and  another  as  teachers,  while  both  are  in- 
cluded in  the  scriptural  term  "  elder." 

If  the  wisdom-  of  the  Holy  Ghost  would  order  a 
special  ordination  for  Barnabas  and  Saul  to  signalize 
their  consecration  to  a  particular  mission  appoiuted  in 
which  prophets  and  teachers  laid  their  bauds  on  a  min- 
ister of  gifts  and  another  of  apostleship — if  a  modern 
church  distinguished  for  practical  economy,  if  not  for 
scriptural  breadth  in  matters  of  government  aud  dis- 
cipline, will  have  a  new  ordination  of  some  among 
others  in  parity  for  a  special  function  that  seems  to  the 
world  a  superior  and  diiferent  office  altogether — why 
should  it  be  objected  to  the  Presbyterian  scheme,  Avhich 
makes  a  generic  sense  of  elder,  that  it  cannot  cousistently 
require  another  ordination  of  the  man  who  passes  from 
the  status  of  a  ruliug  to  that  of  a  teaching  presbyter? 
Divest  the  rite  of  mystical  import  and  make  it  simply 
the  signal  of  another  step  forward  in  the  visible  king- 
dom of  Christ,  and  we  shall  be  vexed  no  more  with 
supernatural  problems  in  its  natural  history. 

5.  We  are  brought  now  to  a  fifth  conclusion  from  our 
obvious  premises — that  ordination  is  in  no  sense  what- 
ever a  sacrament  or  a  channel  in  which  faith  is  to  find 
what  has  been  found  already  in  preparation  for  this 
formal  enactment.  As  we  have  already  noticed,  the 
true  grace  of  office  will  find  its  increment  in  any  occa- 
sion, and  in  the  very  hardships  of  faithfulness  occasioned 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  427 

by  its  own  functions,  quite  as  much  as,  or  more  than, 
in  the  mere  act  of  inauguration.  Even  accepting  the 
vague  definition  of  sacrament  among  the  Englisli  di- 
vines— "a  visible  sign  of  an  invisible  grace" — we  may 
well  ignore  the  channel  of  communication  supposed  to 
be  implied  in  the  solemnity  of  ordination,  and  affirm 
that  it  is  a  sign  of  grace  already  bestowed  whenever  the 
candidate  has  been  moved  by  the  Spirit  of  God  to  seek 
the  investment:  "To  him  that  hath  shall  be  given;" 
"  Take  thee  a  man  in  whom  is  the  spirit,  and  lay  thine 
hand  upon  him."  A  gesture  is  no  sacramental  sign  : 
there  must  be  a  material  substance,  and  that  specified  by 
our  Lord  in  his  own  express  injunction.  He  did  not 
lay  his  hands  on  any  one  to  ordain  him  nor  command 
his  apostles  to  do  so,  nor  yet  interfere  with  them  in 
their  manifest  continuance  of  Old-Testament  usages,  of 
which  this  laying  on  of  the  hands  was  a  prominent  one 
without  being  at  all  connected  with  sacraments,  either 
old  or  new. 

"  The  sacrament  of  orders,"  as  it  is  called  in  the  Latin 
Church,  has  always  been  a  problem  of  perplexity  in  the 
adjustment  of  virtue  supposed  to  be  communicated  by 
the  laying  on  of  hands,  and  any  hierarchicid  system, 
in  proportion  to  the  number  and  variety  of  graduated 
office  in  the  structure,  must  have  some  scale  of  allow- 
ance on  which  to  estimate  both  quality  and  quantity  in 
the  distribution  of  a  mystic  efficacy  conveyed.  The 
Council  of  Trent  was  grievously  baffled  in  attempting 
the  task.  Ordainers  could  not,  of  course,  impart  any- 
thing else  or  more  than  what  is  in  themselves  deriva- 
tively— of  kind,  at  least.  And  still  greater  was  the 
embarrassment  in  ascertaining  the  diffijrence  of  degree 
in  which  the  same  sort  of  virtue  should  be  measured 


428  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

out  in  supplying  subordinate  ranks  of  the  same  generic 
priesthood.  Similar  confusion  betides  the  speculation 
of  Protestant  writers,  who,  though  not  affirming  the 
sacramental  nature  of  ordination,  allege  the  probability 
of  an  active  faith  on  the  part  of  an  intrant,  finding 
official  grace  in  the  channel  of  a  ceremony  coming  down 
through  the  ages  like  a  conduit  from  the  apostles  them- 
selves. Such  a  theory,  to  be  consistent,  must  consider 
official  grace  in  parcels :  each  office  conveying  only  what 
is  in  itself  to  flow,  each  level  must  have  its  own  rivulet 
— bishops  only  ordaining  bishops  ;  elders  only,  elders ; 
deacons  only,  deacons.  For  no  officer  can  give  to  others 
what  he  does  not  possess  himself,  and  to  give  one  of 
inferior  degree  less  than  he  possesses  incurs  the  task  of 
calculating  a  subtracted  value  in  official  grace,  which 
would  make  a  frivolous  mystery  of  all  Christian  office. 
How  incomparably  better  arid  more  becoming  the  dig- 
nity of  Christian  faith  is  that  declarative  recognition  by 
those  already  in  office  of  the  fitness  which  God  has  given 
the  aspirant  for  this  or  any  other  office  to  which  he  is 
called  in  the  Church  !  The  laying  on  of  hands  by  the 
ministry  of  the  word  signifies  this  much,  and  no  more. 
"The  simplicity  that  is  in  Christ"  needs  only  indication 
and  emphasis  in  any  gesture  of  man. 

6.  We  need  not  be  troubled  much  about  reordination. 
On  the  same  principle  that  we  ordain  an  officer  who  has 
been  ordained  to  one  office  when  he  advances  to  another 
of  different  functions,  we  receive  the  minister  of  a  dif- 
ferent denomination  whose  form  of  ordination  differs 
from  our  own  and  would  not  be  accredited  as  regular 
according  to  our  own  constitution.  The  only  question 
to  be  raised  is  the  manifest  intention  and  adequate 
declaration  of  any  form  which  is  unlike  our  own.     If 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  429 

the  same  duties  of  office  were  contemplated  and  the 
same  fitness  recocrnized  and  the  same  notification  de- 
signed  by  legitimate  ordaiuers  outside  of  our  own  de- 
nomination, there  should  be  no  liesitation  of  acceptance 
because  of  a  diversity  of  usage  for  the  same  end.  The 
de-facto  formation  of  another  branch  in  the  visible 
Church  may  have  to  wait  for  a  time  until  the  organ- 
ization is  fairly  understood  by  older  branches.  There 
was  a  refusal  by  the  Presbyterian  Cluirch  in  1792,  and 
repeated  in  1800,  to  recognize  ordination  by  the  Meth- 
odist Church ;  but  ten  years  later,  this  refusal  being 
maturely  reconsidered,  it  was  resolved  by  the  General 
Assembly  that  it  should  not  be  a  precedent  to  "guide 
the  future  decisions  of  the  judicatories."  And  this  was 
reaffirmed  emphatically  in  1852  (p.  210).  In  1821  it 
was  put  on  record  that  "  the  Presbyterian  Church  has 
always  considered  the  ordinations  of  most  other  Prot- 
estant churches  as  valid  in  themselves,  and  not  to  be 
repeated." 

But  it  must  be  "  a  pious  and  learned  ministry  "  that 
is  validated  so  in  giving  and  receiving  ordination — 
"faithful  men  who  shall  be  able  to  teach."  This  is  the 
scriptural  fitness  to  be  recognized  and  proclaimed  in  the 
solemnity.  Cliurches  that  ordain  the  uneducated  who 
have  no  other  evidence  of  fitness  than  desire  to  exercise 
"  the  office  of  a  bishop,"  though  not  unchurched  in  the 
reckoning,  are  not  to  be  recognized  as  regular  in  the  rite 
of  ordaining  to  the  ministry  of  the  word.  Their  min- 
isters may  come  to  us  and  "  wait  for  orders  "  only  in 
waiting  for  a  competent  education,  and,  this  being  as- 
certained, a  simple  vote  of  the  Presbytery  is  enough 
to  acknowledge  the  validity  of  ordination  already  upon 
them.     \\'e  "  require  the  applicants  from  otlier  denora- 


430  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

iuations  to  continue  their  study  and  preparation  till  they 
are  found,  on  trial  and  examination,  to  be  qualified  in 
learning  and  ability  to  teach  in  the  manner  required  by 
our  standards,  but  that  when  found  thus  to  be  qualified 
it  shall  not  be  necessary  to  reordain  the  said  applicants, 
but  only  to  install  them  when  they  are  called  to  settle  in 
Presbyterian  congregations."  * 

The  simplicity  and  largeness  of  the  principle  here 
affirmed  is  in  contrast  with  the  complicated  agonies  of 
those  artificial  systems  of  Catholicism  which  make  a 
sacramental  importance  of  words  and  gestures  in  the  act 
of  ordination.  There  has  been  as  much  trouble  about 
the  omission  of  a  word  or  two  in  pronouncing  a  formula, 
or  about  the  exact  pedigree  of  an  officiating  prelate,  as 
if  the  rock  itself  on  which  the  Church  is  built  had  been 
shaken  by  the  blunder.  Councils  have  been  called 
and  sees  have  thundered  excommunication  against  one 
another  in  fighting  over  the  maladministration  of  a 
rite  which  superstition  invests  with  cabalistic  mystery. 
"  The  result  at  length,"  says  Palmer,  "  is  to  recognize 
no  ordinations  which  are  made  in  heresy  or  schism ;" 
and  wherever  a  doubt  exists  about  the  validity  of  even 
a  Catholic  ordination  the  refuge  is  in  repetition,  know- 
ing that  the  grace  imparted  cannot  be  in  excess,  while 
the  want  of  it  may  jeopard  the  souls  of  men.  And 
yet,  as  repetition  implies  the  invalidity  of  priestly  acts 
already  done,  the  conservators  of  this  grace  are  sadly 
perplexed  by  any  accident  or  inadvertence,  and  might 
well  covet  the  easier  conscience  of  what  they  call  "  un- 
coveuanted  "  Presbyterians. 

7.  The   laying  on  of  hands  in   ordination    does   not 
communicate   authority  any  more  than    grace  of  office 

*  Minutes  of  1821,  p.  15. 


ORDINATION  TO   OFFICE.  431 

to  preach  aud  administer  the  sacraments.  It  is  no 
more  than  simply  an  official  declaration  by  the  Church 
that  the  candidate  is  authorized  by  Glirist  himself  now 
to  proceed  in  the  work  of  the  ministry.  A  recognitiou 
of  what  supreme  authority  in  the  kingdom  orders  must 
be  always  declarative  only  by  a  faithful  ministry  that 
is  already  in  exercise.  The  ministration  of  the  Spirit 
alone  is  "  glorious,"  and  the  ministry  of  reconciliation 
committed  to  us  can  be  such  only  as  it  is  hidden  and 
subservient  behind  that  lustre.  We  make  it  known  that 
we  are  sent  only,  and  that  we  send  others  only  as  God 
sends  them  to  take  part  in  this  ministry  with  us,  using 
no  power  and  authority  on  our  part  but  that  of  attesta- 
tion. 

8.  Representative  authority  is  exhausted  in  this  im- 
position of  hands.  It  is  instrumental  in  sending  a  min- 
ister into  the  whole  field  with  a  general  commission,  but 
to  localize  him  or  assign  him  to  a  particular  place  as  the 
pastor  of  a  special  flock  and  fold  there  must  be  installa- 
tion at  a  special  suffrage  of  the  people.  Here  is  the 
pure  democracy  of  Church  government,  and  representa- 
tion is  not  needed  more  than  to  guide  the  will  of  the 
people.  Wherever  it  is  convenient  for  all  the  members 
of  the  church,  male  and  female,  who  have  come  to  the 
years  of  discretion,  to  assemble  themselves  in  choosing  a 
pastor,  there  the  popular  element  must  be  sigualized  with 
peculiar  distinctness  according  to  the  scriptural  examples 
collated  before.  Each  particular  church  may  have  a  life 
and  character  peculiar  to  itself,  a  taste  and  judgment 
which  must  be  allowed  to  select  the  man  who  is  deemed 
the  best  fitted  for  service  therein.  The  governing  Pres- 
bytery has  to  see  that  the  catalogue  from  which  a  minister 
is  chosen  must  be  well  authenticated  ;  so  that  the  will 


432  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  the  people,  however  sovereign  and  free,  shall  not  be 
allowed  to  choose  a  man  to  their  hurt — one  who  might 
lead  them  astray  to  another  gospel. 

Installation,  therefore — a  subsequent  ceremony  to  that 
of  ordination — constituting  the  particular  tie  of  pastor 
and  people,  as  a  measure  of  order  differs  from  it  in 
the  more  immediate  voting  of  the  people  for  a  teach- 
ing elder  who  has  been  accredited  by  their  representa- 
tives to  be  sound  and  capable,  and  also  in  the  superven- 
ing declaration  by  the  Presbytery  or  their  commission 
that  the  mutual  contract  of  the  parties,  pastor  and  people, 
is  approved  and  ratified.  This  declaration  is  made  in 
words,  and  not  in  gesture.  It  recognizes  and  declares 
the  will  of  man — pastor  and  people — while  the  laying 
on  of  hands  recognizes  and  declares  the  will  of  God  in 
calling  man  to  any  office  in  the  kingdom  of  grace.  His 
will,  indeed,  is  to  be  recognized  in  both  solemnities,  but 
grace  is  emphasized  in  ordination  and  providence  in  in- 
stallation. 


CHAPTER  Xy. 

JUDICATORIES. 

A  CONGREGATIONAL  court  for  the  exercise  of 
government  and  discipline  over  the  people  of  a 
particular  church  is  virtually  established  in  the  ordi- 
nation of  ruling  elders.  Along  with  the  pastor,  these 
are,  of  course,  to  be  employed,  according  to  the  import 
of  their  office,  in  the  joint  administration  of  rule. 
Aldermen  must  have  their  council  and  senators  their 
assembly,  and  every  other  derivative,  from  the  name  of 
age  among  men  through  all  the  analogies  of  good  civil 
government,  must  have  a  conventional  force  in  the  chief 
exercise  of  authority  :  "  Where  no  counsel  is,  the  people 
fall ;  but  in  the  multitude  of  counsellors  there  is  safety." 
When  so  assembled  in  local  jurisdiction  of  minimum  ex- 
tent, the  elders  are  called  a  judicatory  in  general,  and  a 
Session  or  consistory  in  particular. 

That  every  particular  church  shonld  have  a  tribunal 
of  some  kind  to  determine  matters  of  common  interest 
in  church-life,  and  especially  discipline,  will  be  conceded 
wherever  Church  and  State  are  not  united.  That  the 
principle  of  representation  requires  a  tribunal  composed 
of  men  fairly  and  freely  chosen  by  the  people  of  its  pre- 
cinct will  also  be  conceded  wherever  the  Church  is  not  a 
caste  or  its  governors  hierarchal.  And  these  conces- 
sions are  constrained  by  the  dictates  of  reason  and  by 
the  precedents  of  Scripture  at  the  foundation  of  Chris- 

28  433 


434  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tianitj  :  "elders  in  every  city/'  "elders  in  every  church" 
(Tit.  i.  5 ;  Acts  xiv.  23) — a  plurality  always — also  by 
the  express  direction  of  our  Lord  (Matt,  xviii.  15-20) 
and  by  the  various  injunctions  of  submission  to  those 
who  have  the  rule  over  any  church  in  particular — plural 
in  number  always.  1  Thess.  v.  12.  The  one-man  power 
is  precluded  from  the  beginning.  Even  apostolical 
power  was  combined,  and  not  single,  in  juridical  ad- 
ministration during  its  phenomenal  and  transitory  exist- 
ence. 

Many  schemes  have  been  devised,  however,  to  super- 
sede the  council  of  officers  in  a  particular  church  as 
notably  ordained  in  primitive  times.  Leaving  aside  at 
present  the  episcopate  of  prelacy  and  other  kindred 
systems  which  entrust  a  circuit  of  discipline  to  one 
presiding  elder,  we  may  well  consider  at  this  place  a 
too  prevalent  wish  of  the  people  to  be  virtually  rid 
of  their  own  immediate  representatives  and  to  confide 
the  government  of  their  church  to  the  pastor  alone  whose 
ministry  is  popular  and  influence  paramount.  This 
tendency  revolts  from  primitive  Christianity,  hazards 
the  happiness  of  a  pastor,  makes  him  despotic  in  temper 
when  he  likes  it  or  neglectful  of  grave  responsibilities 
imposed  on  him  against  his  will  and  taste.  The  pastor 
is  unable  to  govern  alone.  If  he  is  given  to  reading  and 
meditation  to  such  a  degree  as  the  nourishment  of  his 
hearers  and  the  defence  of  the  gospel  require,  he  cannot 
know  the  facts  and  circumstances  which  must  be  known 
to  manage  a  righteous  exercise  of  discipline.  His  de- 
fective knowledge  of  human  nature,  his  peculiar  habits 
of  thinking  and  feeling,  his  morbid  sensibilities,  induced 
by  study  and  retirement,  the  false  exhibition  of  character 
which  deceives  him  so  often  when  he  does  mingle  with 


JUDICATORIES.  435 

the  world  in  social  intercourse, — all  these  considerations 
evince  that  the  teaching  elder  alone  is  incompetent  and 
oppressed  with  the  government  of  a  congregation. 

Even  if  he  were  able  and  willing  to  exercise  discipline 
alone,  he  ought  not  to  be  trusted  without  safeguards  for 
the  people  as  well  as  for  himself  in  a  selected  bench  of 
counsellors  and  assessors.  It  was,  in  fact,  the  gradual 
and  silent  transfer  of  such  authority  from  the  parish 
council  to  their  aspiring  bishop  which  made  the  original 
change  from  a  constitutional  freedom  to  spiritual  despot- 
ism and  led  to  tlie  loss  of  popular  suffrage  altogether. 
Synods  and  councils,  to  which  many  historians  are  so 
fond  of  ascribing  the  progress  of  clerical  ambition  and 
the  development  of  an  arrogant  hierarchy,  would  have 
been  a  bulwark  in  every  age  alike  of  ministerial  parity 
and  popular  liberty,  as  they  now  are,  but  for  the  paro- 
chial change  in  which  a  representative  bench  surrendered 
to  the  monarchic  priest.  Ruling  elders  being  reduced 
to  the  standing  of  laymen,  superior  courts  being  there- 
fore constituted  of  clergy  alone,  and  the  popular  element 
subtracted  thus  from  all  the  gradations  of  ecclesiastical 
regime,  the  whole  fabric  did  consequently  become  a  con- 
spiracy against  religious  freedom,  the  right  of  private 
judgment  and  scriptural  instruction  of  the  people  rather 
than  the  embodiment  of  ecumenical  wisdom  and  grace. 

Another  scheme  for  the  government  of  a  particular 
church  is  to  have  a  plurality  of  elders  exercise  the  over- 
sight without  distinction  among  them  into  teaching  and 
ruling.  Instead  of  pastor  and  Session  in  council — the 
former  a  teaching  elder  and  the  latter  ruling  elders — 
certain  branches  of  Anabaptist  independency  would 
have  the  elders  homogeneous,  each  one  both  ruler  and 
preacher.     "  The  Disciples,"  as  they  are  called,  followers 


436  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  Thomas  and  Alexander  Campbell,  have  "evangelists" 
also  in  the  organization,  who  are  understood  to  be  given 
wholly  to  the  ministry,  but  only  as  itinerating  ministers, 
except  in  large  towns  and  cities.  Three-quarters  of  the 
century  have  hardly  yet  cleared  up  the  practical  work- 
ing of  this  polity,  and  the  "  no-creed  "  postulate  of  the 
denomination  eschews  definition  so  warily  that  we  are 
left  in  ignorance  of  the  system,  and  can  only  speculate 
upon  its  outcome,  and  ultimate  formation.  It  is  obvi- 
ous, however,  that  extremely  few  particular  churches  in 
Christendom  can  support  more  than  one  teaching  elder, 
who  is  given  wholly  to  spiritual  work,  as  he  ought  to 
be,  living  at  the  altar  and  supplied  with  carnal  things 
by  other  working  hands.  A  plurality  of  pastors  and 
teachers  to  guide  one  church  together  must  be  a  ministry 
without  education  for  the  most  part,  and  consequently 
without  force  enough  to  defend  tlie  gospel  in  these 
days. 

Another  plan  for  the  government  of  a  particular 
church,  as  far  as  it  is  governed  by  officers  at  all,  is  to 
make  the  deacon  a  ruler  along  with  the  pastor.  His 
official  name  in  this  way  becomes  a  misnomer,  for  it 
means  a  servant  rather  than  a  ruler,  and  such  invasion 
of  title  belongs  to  a  time  of  confused  formation,  as  in 
the  Church  of  Scotland  when  the  First  Book  of  Dis- 
cipline was  made,  and  the  modern  churches  of  New 
Euo-land — a  dernier  alternative  since  the  discontinuance 
of  ruling  elders  there.  Although,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
term  is  a  general  appellative  ajiplied  to  any  and  every 
officer  of  the  Church,  the  utmost  precision  of  meaning 
is  demanded  now  by  the  ex])anding  charities  of  the 
faithful.  It  is  no  time  any  more  to  lose  a  distinct 
vocabulary  for  the  care  of  the  poor  and  the  service  of 


JUDICATORIES.  437 

tables :  "  As  the  Lord  hath  called  every  one  so  let  him 
walk."  Distribution  has  become  the  supreme  necessity 
of  our  times,  and  every  officer  whose  origin  and  desig- 
nation both  are  on  this  line  may  not  transcend  its  dignity 
without  unfaithfulness  and  degradation.  Woman  will 
displace  him  and  take  the  glory. 

But  the  most  plausible  substitute  for  a  bench  of  eldcKS 
to  exercise  governing  authority  is  the  people  themselves 
in  a  congregation  of  church-members.  This  theory  of 
self-government  is  the  main  feature  of  the  Independent 
and  Congregational  systems,  and  we  call  it  ''  theory  " 
because  it  happens  to  be  seldom  or  never  carried  into 
practice  without  some  adjuvant  machinery  of  pastor, 
deacons  and  committee-men  to  convert  the  popular  vote 
into  a  formal  registration  of  their  decisions.  What  we 
do  by  others  we  do  by  ourselves.  This  axiom  of  repre- 
sentation cannot  be  inverted  without  being  lost.  We  can- 
not say  that  what  we  do  by  ourselves  we  do  by  others  with- 
out the  initials  of  tyranny,  making  ourselves  masters  of 
others.  Radical  freedom  and  abject  slavery  are  near 
neighbors.  The  temple  of  God  upon  earth  is  the  visible 
Church — a  building  of  Christ — and  all  the  analogies  of 
architecture  must  be  at  fault  if  the  bottom  and  the  top, 
the  foundation  and  the  tower,  the  pedestal  and  the  en- 
tablature of  her  columns,  are  the  same  in  the  view  of 
her  Builder  and  the  attraction  of  her  people.  We  look 
to  the  people  as  a  basis  of  church-power  on  earth  ;  but 
we  look  to  God,  who  made  and  redeemed  them,  for  the 
authority  which  works  on  this  basis  to  shape  his  designs 
and  keep  it  as  his  own.  This  authority  is  reposed  in 
the  offices  which  are  created  and  filled  by  himself,  ac- 
cording to  his  word. 

1.  The    people  are   not  qualified   to  conduct  church 


438  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

goverumeut  immediately  with  their  own  hauds.  Many 
of  these  are  weak  in  understanding,  and  more  of  them 
are  inexperienced,  not  having  senses  exercised  maturely 
enough  for  judging  wisely.  Tt  is  possible,  also,  and 
not  uncommon,  to  find  members  intelligent  enough  to 
enjoy  the  means  of  grace  for  themselves  and  their 
families  disqualified  for  that  calm,  patient  and  discrim- 
inating investigation  of  facts  which  every  trial  demands, 
and  much  more  the  right  inference  from  Scripture  and 
reason  of  what  constitutes  offence  and  how  it  should  be 
censured.  Rightly  to  construe  offences  and  administer 
the  just  reprehension  requires  wisdom  and  tact  which 
even  the  ripest  minds  of  the  Church  do  not  always 
possess.  Her  most  gifted  preachers  themselves  are  not 
infrequently  as  children  at  the  work  of  discipline ;  and 
when  we  consider  that  persons  least  qualified  to  judge 
are  often  most  forward  to  try  it,  most  clamorous  and 
precipitant  in  the  exercise  of  judgment,  there  must 
appear  extreme  hazard  of  perversion  and  mischief  in 
admitting  all  members  alike  to  judicial  or  executive 
voting. 

Bodies  of  men  separated  from  the  world  to  member- 
ship in  the  Church  are  also  well  known  to  be  susceptible 
of  management  by  the  skill  of  a  few  men — perhaps  a 
single  individual  whose  influence  may  have  been  ac- 
quired by  speech  or  wealth  or  family  connection  or 
political  faction ;  and  one  argument  from  such  a  mem- 
ber at  a  particular  crisis  may  suffice  to  pervert  judg- 
ment and  hurry  a  whole  congregation  into  rash  and 
iniquitous  decision.  When  responsibility  is  not  official, 
it  is  not  felt  by  the  many  with  adequate  apprehension  ; 
it  is  diluted  as  it  is  divided — infinitesimal  as  it  is  meas- 
ured by  the  many.      Doubtless  the  sway  of  prejudice 


JUDICATORIES.  439 

may  pervert  the  conscience  of  presbyter  as  well  as 
people;  but  the  probabilities  are  incomparably  fewer 
and  the  damages  more  easily  repaired.  There  is  no 
appeal  in  this  life  from  the  sentence  of  a  multitude. 

And  yet  such  a  sentence  may  be  frequently  incurred. 
Such  is  the  liability  of  popular  bodies  to  bend  under 
the  stress  of  individual  power  that  there  is  scarcely  in 
existence  a  popular  assembly,  civil  or  ecclesiastical, 
which  is  not  led  for  a  time  by  some  one  dictator  or 
torn  into  factions  by  the  rival  exertion  of  different 
aspirants  who  would  be  dictators.  And  when  we 
consider  the  "emulations"  in  their  mutual  envy  and 
jealousy,  the  bitter  disappointment  of  some  and  the 
resentful  triumph  of  others  in  a  petty  contention  for 
local  ascendancy,  we  cannot  believe  that  the  all-wise 
Head  of  the  Church  has  confided  the  delicate  and 
momentous  conduct  of  her  discipline  t(^  the  many  beset 
with  such  possibilities.  In  apostolic  times,  when  the 
whole  body  of  the  faithful  was  miraculously  endowed 
and  elevated  to  a  level  of  spiritual  grace  and  goodness 
which  was  never  known  before  or  after,  there  miffht 
safely  be  made  a  reference  of  the  Corinthian  case  and 
others  to  "  the  manv  "  as  an  ultimate  tribunal ;  and  even 
since  the  Reformation  restored  the  right  of  private  judg- 
ment and  popular  study  of  the  Bible  there  might  be, 
with  the  environment  of  Puritan  faith  and  manners,  an 
adventure  for  a  time  in  this  way ;  but  these  are  epochal 
exceptions  in  the  light  of  revelation,  history,  observation 
and  later  experience. 

Moreover,  could  we  find  a  congregation  as  well  quali- 
fied and  free  from  bias  or  tumult  as  any  bench  of  repre- 
sentative elders  can  be,  other  objections  are  weighty. 
There  would  be,  of  course,  a  want  of  secrecy,  which 


440  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

many  causes  demand  for  safe  and  profitable  issue.  Many 
an  offender,  instead  of  being  led  to  repentance  by  the 
private  dealing  of  an  eldership,  has  been  stung  only 
with  carnal  shame,  overwhelmed  with  confusion  of  mind 
and  hardened  at  length  to  final  impenitence  in  being 
exposed  at  every  step  of  investigation  to  the  idle  im- 
pertinence of  a  crowd.  Vexatious  delay  also  at  one 
step,  and  headlong  precipitance  at  another,  and  blun- 
dering reporters  at  every  step,  must  agitate  the  popular 
venue  so  much  that  process  becomes  more  troublesome 
than  offence  itself,  and  results  in  the  propagation  of 
scandal  more  than  in  the  correction  of  evil.  One  trial 
has  more  than  once  destroyed  a  prosperous  church. 

If  this  way  of  discipline  be  the  primitive  model,  as 
its  advocates  allege,  it  ought  to  be  suited  to  newly- 
evangelized  countries  with  special  adaptation  ;  for  these 
are  the  field  where  apostolic  precedent  has  mainly  fur- 
nished our  lead.  Imagine  a  missionary  met  with  his 
converts  for  the  adjudication  of  some  difficult  case  re- 
quiring much  thought  and  able  investigation  of  God's 
word  as  the  chief  directory.  His  people  as  yet  are  but 
little  informed  and  know  little  or  nothing  of  this  word 
but  the  simple  story  of  the  cross.  The  truths  which 
belong  essentially  to  their  salvation  are  not  casuistical 
theology  in  their  minds.  They  are  as  "  little  children  " 
exhorted  by  the  apostle  John  to  ''  walk  in  truth  "  and 
"  let  no  man  deceive  them."  Consultation  is  impossible 
in  their  assembly,  and  they  vote  only  as  the  teacher 
himself  directs  them.  One  man's  will  is  the  only  inde- 
pendence, the  native  heathen  see,  in  the  procedures  of 
discipline.  Officers  of  the  church  must  begin,  conduct 
and  close  the  question  for  deliberation.  Even  at  the 
new  settlements  of  our  own  country  the  instinct  of  Con- 


J  U  Die  A  TORIES.  441 

gregation  all  sill  would  seek  in  a  "  plan  of  union  "  with 
other  forms  of  government  to  mix  organization  and 
combine  its  own  executive  weakness  with  the  strength 
of  more  compacted  systems  until  the  surroundings  of  a 
complete  Christian  civilization,  which  it  has  done  so 
much  to  produce,  will  enable  it  to  venture  on  its  own 
ideal. 

2.  The  inexpediency  of  governing  a  particular  church 
by  the  members  themselves,  without  a  representative 
eldership  selected  by  their  votes,  may  well  be  inferred 
from  Scripture  intimations  which  are  authoritative  be- 
yond the  presumption  of  reason  or  the  induction  of 
facts.  When  the  apostle  Paul  enumerates  in  the  largest 
catalogue  of  offices  in  the  New  Testament  (1  Cor.  xii. 
28)  the  specialties  of  power  bestowed  on  the  })eople 
for  their  benefit  and  service,  he  says,  "  God  hath  set 
some  in  the  church."  The  divine  appointment  is 
emphatic — "  hath  set,"  iOsro,  the  Greek  word  for  offi- 
cial constitution.  The  distribution  also  is  emphatic — 
"  some,"  not  all — and  the  recapitulation  is  so,  likewise, 
in  urging  distinctness:  "Are  all  apostles?  are  all 
prophets?  are  all  teachers?  are  all  workers  of  mira- 
cles?" etc.  He  does  not  add,  "are  all  governments?" 
because  every  other  office,  ordinary  and  extraordinary, 
did  include  authority  in  its  very  nature,  just  as  we 
say  the  teaching  elder  includes  the  ruling  elder  in  his 
functions,  while  personally  and  officially  distinct  fi*om 
the  latter.  The  entire  list  is  here  emphasized  as  distinct 
from  the  people,  and  "governments"  are  mentioned  as 
a  qualification  common  to  all  and  by  itself,  as  in  the 
ruling  elder,  yet  one-eighth  only  in  the  range  of  all 
the  specialties  of  office.  Nothing  in  language  could  be 
more  conclusive  in  distinguishing  the  people  themselves, 


442  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

as  a  body,  from  the  ruling  set  over  them  by  divine 
appointment.  "Governments"  are  "some,"  not  all, 
among  the  members,  and  this  word  in  the  original 
{xo^epv^aei^)  comprehends  all  the  varieties  of  superin- 
tending authority  in  the  Church — guiding,  directing, 
judging  and  enforcing  judgment — as  one  governs  a 
ship  at  sea. 

Another  passage  of  Scripture  making  a  distinction 
obvious  between  the  rulers  and  the  ruled  in  church  gov- 
erument  is  (Heb.  xiii.  24),  "  Salute  all  them  that  have 
the  rule  over  you,  and  all  the  saints."  Surely  no  trans- 
lation can  be  better  than  these  authorized  words.  Twice 
in  the  same  chapter  this  difference  between  the  rulers 
and  the  ruled  had  been  made  with  imperative  force. 
Ver.  7:  "Remember  them  which  have  the  rule  over 
you,  who  have  spoken  unto  you  the  word  of  God ;" 
ver.  17:  "Obey  them  that  have  the  rule  over  you,  and 
submit  yourselves,"  etc.  It  is  of  no  advantage  to  Inde- 
pendency that  these  rulers  are  spiritual  guides,  and  this 
is  the  primary  sense  of  the  woi'd — going  before  and 
leading  the  saints.  For,  of  course,  it  is  leading  with 
authority  which  the  saints  are  to  "  obey,"  and  the  con- 
necting "and,"  which  is  distinctive  also,  cannot  make 
the  termination  of  this  great  book  of  the  canon  a  drivel- 
ling tautology.  Take  any  other  familiar  text  M'hich 
enjoins  obedience  and  honor  to  whom  honor  is  due, 
such  as  1  Tim.  v.  17:  "Let  the  elders  that  rule  well 
be  counted  worthy  of  double  honor."  Can  this  com- 
mand be  reconciled  with  the  presumption  that  the  people 
of  a  particular  church  rule  themselves,  and  the  rever- 
ence of  their  elders  must  mean  respect  for  those  who 
merely  collect  and  declare  the  result  of  popular  delib- 
eration and  decision?     And  if,  as  certain  Independent 


JUDICATORIES.  443 

writers  argue,  the  "  honor "  here  means  pay  or  stipend 
for  the  support  of  their  guides,  according  to  the  context 
analogy,  "  Thou  shalt  not  muzzle  the  ox  that  treadeth 
out  the  corn.  And  the  laborer  is  worthy  of  his  re- 
ward," then  the  pleasure  of  the  people  who  rule  them- 
selves in  tlireshing  may  consist  in  taking  "double"  pay 
to  themselves  !  In  the  light  of  Scripture  as  well  as  of 
reason  this  method  of  church  government  does  really 
seem  to  be,  as  Jonathan  Edwards  called  it,  a  "  confused 
way." 

3.  Emblems  of  investiture  indicate  power  in  oiSciatiug 
distinct  from  that  of  the  people  and  over  them  in  the 
Lord.  Such  was  the  nominal  delivery  of  keys  in  the 
orig-inal  constitution  of  the  Christian  miuistrv.  Matt, 
xvi.  18;  xviii.  18;  John  xx.  23.  Like  a  steward's 
badge,  worn  upon  the  shoulder  of  old,  designated  by 
the  lord  of  the  house  for  a  sign  of  superiority  in  a  serv- 
ant for  a  time,  even  over  children  of  the  family,  who 
share  the  inheritance ;  like  the  sceptre  of  a  kingdom 
founded  on  the  rights  of  a  people  who  are  precluded 
themselves  from  wielding  that  symbol  of  authority  in 
the  hands  of  princes  by  their  succession,  though  the 
ultimate  ownership  be  that  of  the  people ;  like  the 
Constitution  of  our  own  national  government,  made  by 
the  people  and  abiding  at  their  will,  authorizing  investi- 
ture at  the  voluntary  suffrage  of  majorities,  while  they 
cannot  personally  assume  office  or  its  prerogatives  to 
themselves  at  their  own  option, — is  investment  with  the 
keys  which  our  Lord  originally  conferred  on  his  disci- 
ples as  representatives  of  the  faithful.  The  people,  as 
a  body,  cannot  at  their  pleasure  take  office  or  exercise 
its  functions,  although  it  belongs  to  them  in  its  full 
value,  its  outcome,  protection  and  usefulness. 


444  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

It  has  been  objected  that  the  keys  were  given  to  Peter 
upon  his  confession  "  Thou  art  the  Christ,"  etc. — a  con- 
fession which  private  members  of  the  Church  in  any  age 
may  make  as  well,  who  are  therefore  equally  entitled — 
in  their  assemblage,  at  least — to  bind  and  loose  on  earth 
in  the  exercise  of  church  power.  But  this  presumption 
is  a  lame  conclusion.  Because  a  function  of  momentous 
import  was  bestowed  on  one  believer  when  he  made  a 
good  confession,  it  does  not  follow  that  the  same  devolves 
on  every  believer  who  makes  the  same  confession.  His 
appointment  is  not  bound  by  a  precedent,  for  it  is  sover- 
eign. Occasions  are  like  chaff  before  the  wind,  "which 
bloweth  where  it  listeth."  On  a  subsequent  occasion  the 
Saviour  asked  repeatedly,  "  Simon,  son  of  Jonas,  lovest 
thou  me?"  and  for  his  repeated  answers  in  the  affirma- 
tive he  commissions  Peter  with  repeated  emphasis : 
"  Feed  my  sheep — feed  my  lambs ;"  yet  it  does  not 
follow  that  the  same  commission  that  thus  openly  re- 
stored the  apostleship — which  it  might  be  supposed  he 
had  lost  by  the  denial  of  his  Master — now  devolves  on 
every  penitent  believer  who  can  say  with  sincerity  he 
loves  the  Saviour,  and  loves  him  more  than  others,  to 
feed  with  the  authority  of  a  shepherd  the  sheep  and 
the  lambs  of  Christ. 

It  has  been  again  objected  that  "  the  keys "  are  not 
metaphorical  of  power,  but  of  knowledge  and  prece- 
dence. We  may  readily  admit,  as  it  was  customary  to 
deliver  a  key  to  the  rabbi  in  token  of  his  initiation,  that 
a  secondary  and  subordinate  sense  of  the  figure  was  of 
this  kind,  for  so  Peter  was  distinguished  from  the  other 
apostles  in  the  address  to  him  as  a  predecessor  and  rep- 
resentative in  being  the  first  preacher  to  the  Jews  on  the 
day  of  Pentecost,  and  also  the  first  to  open  up  the  access 


JUDICATORIES.  445 

of  Gentiles  to  the  knowledge  of  the  gospel.  But  we 
cannot  exhaust  the  emblem  by  this  meaning  without 
overlooking  the  signification  of  pre-eminent  power  dis- 
tinctly given  it  in  Scripture  (Isa.  xxii.  20 ) :  "  It  sliall 
come  to  pass  in  that  day,  that  I  will  call  my  servant 
Eliakim,  the  son  of  Hilkiah ;  and  I  will  clothe  him 
with  thy  robe,  and  strengthen  him  with  thy  girdle ;  and 
I  will  commit  thy  government  into  his  hand,  and  the 
key  of  the  house  of  David  I  will  lay  upon  his  shoulder ; 
he  shall  open  and  none  shall  shut,  and  he  shall  shut  and 
none  shall  open."  Corn.'sjionding  to  this  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament we  read  in  the  New  (Rev.  iii.  7) :  '*  And  to  the 
angel  of  the  church  in  Philadelphia  write,  These  things 
saith  he  that  is  holy,  he  that  is  true,  he  that  liath  the  key 
of  David,  he  that  openeth  and  no  man  shutteth,  and  that 
shutteth  and  no  man  openeth."  The  power  of  Jesus 
was  the  preface  of  inauguration  by  his  hands,  and  we 
have  the  stupendous  intimation  of  this  from  his  own 
lips  in  conferring  the  last  great  commission  befure  he 
ascended — "All  power  is  given  unto  me  in  heaven  and 
in  earth.  Go  ve  therefore,  and  teach  all  nations" — that 
a  derived  and  immanent  potency  must  belong  to  every 
office  created  by  his  will  and  filled  by  his  Spirit.  Being 
always  representative  King  of  the  people  he  saves,  the 
sceptre  is  by  no  means  levelled  to  this  community  itself 
in  the  exercise  of  authority  over  them,  for  it  is  the 
essence  of  true  representation  to  do  what  the  repre- 
sented cannot  do  for  themselves. 

4.  Acts  of  government  and  discipline  are  ascribed 
directly  to  officers  alone,  so  far  as  the  Scriptures  give 
us  examples.  The  first  is  admission  of  members  to  the 
visible  Church.  When  three  thousand  on  the  day  of 
Pentecost  were  added  to  the  church  after  the  preaching 


446  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  a  sermon,  it  was  impossible  to  hold  the  deliberations 
of  a  congregation  to  vote  them  in  npon  the  ap])lioation 
of  converts,  for  in  that  hour  of  transition  from  the  old 
to  the  new  economy  of  membership  the  faith  which  be- 
longed to  that  renovation  would  follow  the  elder  as  usual 
in  suitable  organization,  to  be  formally  recognized  in  the 
body  of  Christ.  Undoubtedly,  many  believers  on  him 
were  attached  to  synagogues  which  were  not  wholly  con- 
verted by  the  infusion  of  Christian  doctrine  and  sacra- 
ments, and  these  could  not  be  congregated  apart  for 
Christian  government  until  the  new  consolidation  would 
be  settled.  Remaining,  therefore,  under  the  old  govern- 
ment by  elders  until  the  new  should  be  adjusted,  they 
would  afterward  come  out  with  their  accustomed  regi- 
men along,  exchanging  only  the  shadowy  faith  of  the 
law  for  the  beaming  light  of  the  gospel.  If  Jewish 
elders  did  not  come  with  them.  Christian  elders  would 
be  appointed,  as  the  history  of  first  formation  attested 
in  sacred  records. 

The  great  provisional  officers  of  that  primitive  time 
— the  apostolic  ministry  and  the  ministry  of  gifts — 
opened  with  the  keys  in  their  hands,  either  individually 
or  together  as  occasion  required.  When  Philip  received 
the  many  men  and  women  whom  he  baptized  at  Samaria, 
as  also  the  Ethiopian  eunuch — when  Paul  was  admitted 
by  Ananias  in  the  city  of  Damascus,  although  a  society 
of  believers  existed  there  whose  consent  might  have  been 
obtained — there  is  no  evidence  that  it  was  sought  for  or 
that  the  vote  of  any  church  was  needed  or  desired  in  any 
of  those  admissions;  and  however  transitory  the  pro- 
visional government  may  have  been,  it  continued  long 
enough  to  furnish  principle  and  valid  application  of  it 
for  all  time,  especially  manifest  in  ordination  or  indue- 


J  UDICA  TORIES.  447 

tion  to  sacred  office.  Wlien  "■  the  seven  "  were  elected  by 
the  people,  they  were  inducted  by  the  apostles.  When 
Timothy  was  ordained,  it  was  "  with  the  laying  on  of 
the  hands  of  the  Presbytery ;"  when  he  was  instructed, 
as  an  officer,  to  commit  the  ministry  to  others,  it  was 
with  his  own  discriminating  judgment  as  to  their  ability 
and  faithfulness.  2  Tim.  ii.  2.  ^yhen  elders  were  to  be 
ordained  in  Crete,  Titus  was  instructed  to  do  it;  and  we 
know  that  Barnabas  and  Paul  ordained  elders  in  every 
church  they  organized. 

In  evading  the  force  of  these  examples  it  has  been 
urged  that  the  original  term  expressing  ordination  of 
elders  in  every  church  (Acts  xiv.  23),  and  literally  trans- 
lated "stretching  out  the  hand,"  must  primarily  import 
the  action  of  the  people  in  giving  their  votes  according 
to  the  Greek  mode  of  popular  suifrage.  But,  as  already 
seen,  the  action  expressed  by  the  word  was  undoubtedly 
that  of  Barnabas  and  Paul,  and  we  may  add  that,  with 
an  accusative  following,  the  Greek  etymon  would  make 
this  word  express  also  the  gesture  of  even  one  or  two  in 
authority,  designating  merely  the  person  or  persons  ap- 
pointed. In  the  parallel  ordination  of  elders,  (Tit.  i.  5) 
another  word,  signifying  simply  authoritative  appoint- 
ment is  used  for  the  transactions  of  Titus  enjoined  by  the 
apostle.  We  claim  a  compounded  action,  as  alleged  in 
another  place,  for  all  due  order  in  appointing  church- 
officers — popular  assent  openly  signified  by  the  direct 
vote  of  either  first  hands  inunediatelv  or  second  hands 
in  representative  agency,  and  the  authoritative  recog- 
nition by  those  already  in  office.  God  hath  joined  these 
two  together,  and  man  should  not  put  them  asunder. 
That  election  by  the  people  may  suffice  to  invest  one 
with  office    in    extreme  cases    of  impossibility  for   the 


448  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

regular  successiou  of  office  may  be  admitted  because 
of  the  superior  importance  of  truth  to  forms  and  of 
the  apostolical  stress  on  ability  and  faitlifulness  in  charg- 
ing Timothy  in  the  matter  of  ordination.  But  this  ex- 
ception only  confirms  the  rule  which  makes  the  impo- 
sition of  hands  by  official  men  an  ordinary  and  relative 
necessity.  A  deposit  so  valuable  as  to  require  one  to 
break  the  casket  when  the  key  is  lost,  in  order  to  enjoy 
it,  will  require  ordinarily  on  that  account  a  more  vigilant 
preservation  of  both  casket  and  key.  The  pretensions 
of  a  prelate  to  communicate  from  the  palm  of  his  hand 
the  secret  virtue  of  an  office  which  no  suffrages  of  the 
faithful  may  help  to  confer  cannot  be  worse  at  the  one 
extreme  than  the  radical  independence  of  Priestly  at 
the  other,  who  would  have  only  a  vote  of  the  people 
to  inaugurate  any  man  in  the  ministry  of  Christ. 

Brownisra,  at  the  birth  of  Independency,  about  the 
year  1580,  challenged  the  laying  on  of  hands  as  an  idle 
superstition,  and  proposed  the  vote  of  the  people  in- 
stead as  an  adequate  investment  with  office.  John 
Robinson  conducted  the  experiment  with  more  success, 
and  consigned  the  best  of  it  to  New  England,  and 
Joseph  Priestly,  a  century  later  than  Brown,  came  to 
try  it  in  Pennsylvania,  contending  that  rational,  effective 
and  complete  ordination  consisted  only  in  the  popular 
suffrage,  and  that  the  laying  on  of  hands  by  those 
already  in  office  belonged  to  the  times  of  supernatural 
endowment,  proper  only  in  the  conferring  of  a  mi- 
raculous gift.  Of  course  the  injunction,  "Lay  hands 
suddenly  on  no  man,"  was  overlooked  in  this  argu- 
ment, for  it  manifestly  implies  the  exercise  of  discre- 
tion, wherejis  there  could  be  no  room  for  this  if  it  were 
an   immediate  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  making  gesture 


JUDICATORIES.  449 

of  man  the  instantaneous  occasion  of  divine  power. 
Moreover,  the  oharisms  of  primitive  time  were  bestowed 
in  answer  to  prayer  (Acts  viii.  15)  accompanying  the 
laying  on  of  hands,  and  we  might  therefore  dispense 
with  prayer  also  in  ordination  by  a  vote  of  the  people 
if  this  were  sufficient  for  a  consecration  to  office.  Still 
more,  if  this  were  all,  an  election  by  the  people,  recon- 
sidered and  reversed,  would  logically  divest  tiie  minister 
of  all  it  had  conferred  and  reduce  tlie  officer  to  layman 
until  he  is  elected  again  by  some  other  church  in  par- 
ticular. 

Such  abasement  could  be  prevented  only  by  some 
conciliary  seal  representing  a  communion  of  churches 
with  one  another — a  catholic  scope  of  authority  in  some 
convention  of  ministers,  distinct  from  and  over  the 
people,  of  any  particular  church.  Hence  the  quick 
translation  of  Independency  to  Congregationalism  in 
both  hemispheres,  and  especially  in  America,  and  this 
restored  to  its  logical  place  in  ccclesia  the  imposition  of 
hands  bv  conventional  action  of  delegates  from  different 
churches — Association  in  Massachusetts,  and  Consocia- 
tion in  Connecticut.  This  advance  on  middle  groimd 
between  prelacy  and  Presbytery  is  good  and  great,  l)ut, 
we  think,  is  not  complete,  according  to  the  Scriptures 
and  to  common  sense,  until  delegates  turn  to  representa- 
tives of  the  people  in  the  fair  and  fidl  sense  of  re})re- 
sentation — the  trusted  light  and  consciience  of  cliosen 
men  to  rule  the  people  while  advising  them,  promoting 
their  best  interest,  whether  it  be  for  or  against  their  own 
wishes  at  the  time.  That  remarkable  phrase  which  we 
have  noticed  in  another  connection  (Heb.  vi.  2) — an  im- 
portant item  in  the  detail  of  tenets  which  are  funda- 
mental   in    the   Ciiristian    svstem — "  the    laving  on   of 

29 


450  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

bauds" — should  still  be  held  as  a  startiug-poiut  in 
Church  progress  while  time  endures.  The  comraentary 
of  Thomas  Cartwright — that  persecuted  Puritan  of  the 
sixteenth  century  whom  Whitgift  hated  and  exiled — 
must  be  recalled  and  studied  in  its  pertinency  and  exact- 
ness :  "  By  imposition  of  hands  the  apostle  meaneth  no 
sacrament,  in  that  whosoever  believeth  that  there  is  not 
to  be  a  ministry  to  teach  and  govern  the  Church  over- 
throweth  Christianity ;  whereas,  if  confirmation  be  a 
sacrament,  as  it  is  not,  yet  a  man  holding  the  rest 
and  denying  the  use  of  it  might  notwithstanding  be 
saved." 

The  third  act  of  power  which  officers  alone  may  per- 
form is  discipline,  in  the  special  sense  of  censure — the 
authoritative  application  of  the  divine  word  to  oifences. 
John  XX.  23 :  "  Whosesoever  sins  ye  remit,  they  are 
remitted;  and  whosesoever  sins  ye  retain  they  are  re- 
tained." It  is  to  Timothy  that  the  apostle  says,  "Against 
an  elder  receive  not  an  accusation,  but  before  two  or 
three  witnesses;"  and  to  Titus,  "A  man  that  is  an 
heretic,  after  the  first  and  second  admonition  reject." 
These  are  injunctions  for  the  exercise  of  discipline,  and 
there  is  no  instance  of  such  injunction  to  the  people. 
It  has  been  argued  against  this  position  that  our  Lord 
in  Matt,  xviii.  17  directs  an  aggrieved  party,  when  pri- 
vate conference  has  failed  and  ample  proof  has  proved 
insufficient,  to  gain  the  offender  in  reconciliation  to  "tell 
it  to  the  church,"  assuming  this  to  mean  an  open  pub- 
lication to  the  people  who  are  members,  and  as  such 
must  be  the  court  of  ultimate  adjudication.  But  this 
meaning  of  the  term  "  church  "  must  not  be  taken  for 
granted;  there  was  no  such  a  body  of  people  in  exist- 
ence when  these  words  were  spoken.     The  Jewish  syna- 


JUDICATORIES.  451 

gogue  was  the  visible  Church  as  yet,  aud  there  a  bench 
of  elders  administered  discipline,  and  a  tribunal  of  three 
elders  was  familiarly  called  "  the  Church  "  in  its  repre- 
sentative authority. 

Conceding,  however,  that  our  Lord  spoke  proleptically 
in  the  utterance  of  these  words  for  the  direction  of  the 
Christian  Church  that  he  was  then  founding,  we  see  iu 
the  following  context,  while  treating  iu  the  same  breath 
of  contention  over  offences,  the  memorable  promise  of 
his  own  official  presence  to  countenance  and  bless  the 
smallest  plurality  of  judges  that  meet  in  his  name : 
"  For  where  two  or  three  are  gathered  together  in  my 
name,  there  am  I  in  the  midst  of  them."  Past,  present 
and  future  is  the  tenor  of  this  judicial  promise.  It  was 
familiar  to  the  Jewish  mind  from  the  beginning  to  un- 
derstand elders  to  be  meant  when  the  body  over  which 
they  presided  was  mentioned.  In  the  thirty-fifth  of 
Numbers  it  is  said  that  the  cono-reoation  of  the  citv  to 
which  the  manslayer  and  the  avenger  of  blood  belonged 
should  judge  between  them,  and  yet  we  know  from  Deut. 
xvi.,  xviii.,  etc.,  that  the  elders  did  all  that  was  there 
ascribed  to  the  congregation  ;  and  it  was  their  ])reroga- 
tive  alone  (Josh.  xx.  4),  and  the  formula  of  "standing 
before  the  congregation"  in  judgment  is  consistent  with 
judgment  by  the  elders  only  in  expressing  the  publicity 
of  the  decision,  if  not  the  open  pi'ocess  of  trial  also 
before  the  result  is  announced  in  public.  Even  when 
the  "Church"  is  read  in  the  distinctive  Christian  sense 
(Acts  viii.  1)  it  would  seem  that  her  officers  more  than 
her  people  carried  the  name :  "At  that  time  there  was  a 
great  persecution  against  the  church  which  was  at  Jeru- 
salem :  and  they  were  all  scattered  abroad,  throughout 
the  regions  of  Judaea  and  Samaria,  except  the  apostles;" 


452  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

"  therefore,  they  that  were  scattered  abroad  went  every- 
where jsreaching  the  word." 

Another  plea  for  the  exercise  of  discipline  immedi- 
ately by  the  people  themselves  is  the  example  of  it  in 
the  case  of  that  incestuous  offender  among  the  Co- 
rinthians. 1  Cor.  V. ;  2  Cor.  ii.  The  Corinthian  people 
are  blamed  for  not  mournino;  over  a  flasritious  crime : 
all  are  commanded,  when  gathered  together,  to  proceed 
against  the  transgi-essor,  and  their  proceeding  is  declared 
to  be  judicial,  and  upon  the  evidence  of  repentance  all 
are  required  to  forgive  and  receive  him.  "Here,  then," 
said  Cotton  Mather,  "  is  conclusive  proof  that  the  peo- 
ple are  empowered  to  exercise  discipline."  Official 
authority,  however,  moved  and  directed  the  whole  pro- 
ceeding in  that  case.  This  authority  was  to  preside  "  in 
spirit"  over  all  the  process — the  sentence,  the  excision 
and  the  restoration.  Intermediate  between  the  apostolic 
behest  and  the  action  required  were  elders  in  official 
standing  we  may  well  presume  from  the  planting  every- 
where and  "in  every  church"  that  apostolic  history  has 
mentioned.  These  were  not  superseded,  but  propelled, 
by  the  apostle's  mandate  in  the  line  of  their  duty — not 
mentioned  in  particular,  because  they  were  identified  so 
closely  with  the  people,  and  especially  at  that  time,  when 
all  the  elders  were  immediate  representatives  of  the  peo- 
ple in  ruling  only,  and  the  itinerating  ministry  of  gifts 
were  their  preachers. 

Even  admitting  that  the  people  in  a  body  during  the 
apostolic  age  did  exercise  discipline  with  their  votes,  and 
not  their  elders  officially,  it  may  have  been  expedient 
then,  as  it  is  not  now,  for  all  members  of  the  church  M^ere 
made  capable  then,  as  they  are  not  now,  by  the  endow- 
ments of  the  Holy  Ghost,  according  to  the  prophecy  of 


JUDICA  TORIES.  453 

Joel,  shed  with  unparalleled  effusion  upon  her  sons  and 
daughters,  her  young  men  and  old  men,  her  servants 
and  handmaidens.  All  were  a  people  of  gifts  in  the 
forming  state  of  the  Christian  Church,  having  with  them 
a  special  ministry  of  gifts  commissioned  without  ordina- 
tion, and  the  transactions  of  that  provisional  period, 
being  extraordinary  and  exceptional,  are  not  binding 
examples  in  form,  whatever  they  may  be  in  principle. 
And  the  principle  in  the  Corinthian  case  abides  quite 
evidently  now,  when  a  pious  people  move  their  officers 
to  duty ;  so  that  rulers  and  ruled  are  made  identical 
iu  their  obedience  to  the  word  of  God  and  exhortation 
of  his  ministers. 

There  is  nothing  whatever  in  that  example  of  the 
Corinthian  church  to  justify  the  people  now  in  making 
a  tribunal  of  themselves  without  adjudicating  elders 
over  them  in  the  trial  of  offences.  That  all  are  blamed 
for  not  mourning  over  the  offence  is  no  evidence  that  all 
were  to  vote  iu  the  exercise  of  punishment,  any  more 
than  universal  sorrow  among  the  people  of  a  Presby- 
terian church  over  the  apostasy  or  scandal  of  a  member 
is  evidence  that  all  the  people  have  like  authority  in 
judging  and  inflicting  censure.  The  effect  of  such 
compunction  is  to  remove  the  offence,  not  by  a  popular 
vote  of  ejection,  but  by  stirring  up  the  office-bearers  to 
do  their  duty  in  the  premises.  If  we  are  to  take  the 
case  out  of  the  miraculous  categorv  in  which  the  sinner 
was  delivered  over  to  Satan  for  the  destruction  of  the 
flesh,  we  must  try  it  by  the  ordinary  principles  of  inter- 
pretation, according  to  which  a  syntiietic  language  never 
discriminates  nicely  between  the  principal  and  the  agent, 
the  body  and  its  instruments.  "  If  thy  brother,"  says 
Moses,  "  the  son    of   thy   mother,   or  thy   son,   or  thy 


454  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

daughter,  or  the  wife  of  thy  bosom  entice  thee  secretly, 
saying.  Let  us  go  and  serve  other  gods,  thou  shalt  not 
consent  to  him,  nor  hearken  to  him ;  neither  shall  thine 
eye  pity  him,  neither  shalt  thou  spare,  neither  shalt  thou 
conceal  him,  but  thou  shalt  surely  kill  him."  Deut.  xiii. 
6.  Who  would  understand  by  this  injunction  that  the 
Israelites  at  large  were  authorized  promiscuously  to  put 
the  incipient  idolater  to  death  without  being  tried  and 
condemned  by  the  judges  appointed  ?  How  often  were 
the  ancient  Hebrews  condemned  as  a  people  for  the  mal- 
administration of  justice  !  while  it  is  manifest  that  the 
rulers,  and  not  the  people,  were  the  immediate  trans- 
gressors. And  thus  we  might  go  on  indefinitely  to  show 
how  the  people  and  their  governors  are  identified  with 
each  other  nominally  as  well  as  morally,  and  historically, 
though  not  officially,  by  representation  at  the  smallest 
council  of  the  Church  as  well  as  at  the  largest;  the 
church  unit  and  the  Church  multiplied  ecclesiastically 
one,  and  a  distinct  and  double  honor  within  awarded  to 
the  elders  that  rule  well,  and  especially  those  that  labor 
in  the  word  and  teaching.  The  purest  democracy  is 
republican  both  in  Church  and  in  State,  and  its  con- 
sciousness of  this  begins  at  the  first  conventicle  formed, 
where  coequal  and  independent  men  unite  to  designate 
"  some,"  and  not  all,  to  preside  or  speak  or  lead  in  the 
exercise  of  any  conventional  force,  legislative,  executive 
or  judicial. 


H 


CHAPTER   XVI. 

JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION. 

AVING  seen  the  necessity  of  a  judicial  bench  in 
each  particular  church,  constituted  of  representa- 
tives of  the  people  rather  than  of  the  people  themselves, 
we  are  next  to  inquire  about  the  extent  of  this  repre- 
sentation and  whether  it  may  itself  be  represented  in 
catholic  enlargement  of  space  and  comprehensive  power. 
Each  particular  church  must  be  independent  of  every 
other  if  the  assembled  members,  official  and  unofficial, 
must  have  equal  power  to  pass  and  declare  authoritative 
acts  in  discipline  and  rule,  because  an    integer  of  this 
kind  cannot  be  extended.     Definite  extension  must  be  - 
arbitrary  and  accidental,  and   indefinite   extension   im- 
possible.    One  congregation   may  touch  another  on  its 
confines    with    mechanical    action    and    artificial    corre- 
spondence, but  the  corporeity  of  life  in  Christ  is  without 
live  articulation  in   such  a  system,  and  Catholicism  is 
addition  more  than  development,  imaginative  more  than 
actual  and  visible.     The  visible  Church  was  made  for 
expansion  ;  the  body  of  Christ  on  earth  was  born  for 
growth  and  development,  which  assuredly  does  not  con- 
sist in  mere  aggregation  of  equal  and  similar  parts,  like 
added  to  like,  one  little  visibility  after  another,  complete 
in  itself  and  walled  up  by  its  own   peculiar  covenant 
until  the  whole  promised  land  is  oversi)read  with  brist- 
ling parapets  like  that  anterior  Palestine  which  Israel 

455 


456  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

came  to  conquer.     The  ultimate  civilization  must  have 
a  central  Jerusalem. 

When  it  is  fairly  settled  that  the  primary  court  is 
representative  in  the  constitution  of  its  Session,  we  are 
to  consider  how  much  more  a  consolidated  rather  than  a 
confederated  system  of  indefinitely  wider  extent  should 
be  constructed.  As  the  suffrage  of  the  people  must,  of 
course,  become  less  immediate  and  more  impracticable  as 
the  whole  body  is  enlarged,  so  the  representatives  of  the 
people  increase  in  number  until  they  are  too  many  for 
the  convenient  exercise  of  power  with  due  deliberation 
and  becoming  order.  The  contraction  which  is  neces- 
sary then  does  not  require  a  well-compacted  system  to 
return  in  its  progress  to  first  principles  or  first  hands  for 
a  better  fitness  to  rule.  It  is  by  no  means  too  remote 
from  the  people  that  their  immediate  representatives 
should  be  themselves  represented,  and  that  the  second 
representation  also  should  be  contracted  to  another  and 
another  in  higher  judicatories  or  commissions  for  the 
sake  of  order,  unity  and  effectiveness.  Selection  at 
the  very  top  of  this  pyramidal  structure  stands  all  the 
more  firmly  on  the  broad  basis  of  popular  suffrage  where 
it  rests,  and  it  is  the  unrest  of  anarchy  itself,  and  change 
of  the  building  to  a  babel  which  must  run  back  to  the 
people  at  every  step  of  the  gradation.  When  Christ  is 
"  Head,"  elementary  power  in  his  people  derived  from 
him  ascends  with  the  building,  and  is  always  implied  in 
representative  workmen  who  are  "some"  of  themselves 
and  hold  office  as  a  public  trust :  "  The  whole  body  fitly 
joined  together  and  compacted  by  that  which  every 
joint  supplieth,  according  to  the  effectual  working  in 
the  measure  of  every  part,  maketh  increase  of  the  body 
unto  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love." 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  457 

Beyond  a  particular  church  with  its  consistory  of 
officers,  the  gradations  which  intervene  between  it  and 
the  Head  are  called  in  our  system  the  Presbytery, 
the  Synod  and  the  General  Assembly.  These  may  be 
defined  as  higher  and  remoter  tribunals  which  hold 
jurisdiction  over  inferior  judicatories  for  the  purpose 
of  yearly  review,  trying  appeals  and  deciding  on  ques- 
tions of  general  interest  in  doctrine  and  discipline. 
This  decision  is  judicial,  not  advisory,  unless  it  be  so 
expressed  in  its  letter,  and  obligatory  as  the  sound  inter- 
pretation and  application  of  law — the  law  of  Christ. 
We  hold  this  gradation  of  courts  in  the  Church  to  be 
necessary  for  the  unity,  purity,  authority,  faithfulness 
and  moral  power  of  the  visible  Church  as  required  by 
her  Head. 

1.  The  u.nity  of  the  visible  Church  must  have  these 
courts  of  review  as  a  reasonable  safety.  That  her  great 
Founder  designed  her  to  be  one  in  outward  aspect  as 
well  as  inward  spirit  is  evident  from  every  similitude 
used  by  him  and  his  apostles  to  explain  her  nature. 
In  the  thirteenth  chapter  of  Matthew  she  is  set  forth 
as  a  kingdom,  implying,  of  course,  that  in  her  visible 
organization  and  operations  there  should  be  the  suc- 
cessive subordinations  through  which  the  unity  of  sover- 
eign behests  may  be  conveyed  to  the  multiplicity  of  sub- 
jects. In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  Romans  we  have  the 
emblem  of  an  olive  tree  to  represent  the  same  thing. 
From  this  good  olive  the  Jews  are  cut  off  at  present, 
and  the  Gentiles,  that  belonged  to  a  wild  olive  tree,  are 
grafted  in.  This,  of  course,  indicates  a  visible  Church 
relation  made  and  unmade.  And,  again,  in  1  Cor.  xii. 
the  Church  is  compared  to  a  living  human  body,  having 
various  membei's  united  in  one  visible  person  :  "  For,  as 


458  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  body  is  one,  and  hath  many  memljers,  and  all  the 
members  of  that  one  body,  being  many,  are  one  body  : 
so  also  is  Christ."  And  as  Christ,  the  Head,  is  a  visible 
person — *'  God  manifest  in  the  flesh  " — so  also  must  this 
oneness  be  visible  for  a  witness  to  the  world  that  "  there 
is  one  Mediator  between  God  and  man." 

Evading  the  force  of  these  inspired  analogies,  which  in- 
dicate unity  of  some  sort  as  characteristic  of  a  true  Church, 
it  has  been  argued  that  some  other  kind  of  unity  than 
external  and  ecclesiastical  is  intended.  There  is  invisible 
unity,  in  which  all  that  believe  on  Christ  are  connected 
with  one  another,  as  they  are  with  the  common  Head,  by 
invisible  bonds.  There  is  also  doctrinal  unity,  in  which 
all  that  hold  the  same  great  principles  of  faith  and  for- 
mulas of  doctrine  are  one  without  any  visible  organiza- 
tion to  watch  and  constrain  adherence.  And  there  is 
particular  unity,  iu  which  the  members  of  a  particular 
church  and  one  congregation  are  so  harmoniously  united 
among  themselves  as  to  represent,  by  a  specimen  or  pict- 
ure, that  universal  oneness  which  the  Mediator  has  prom- 
ised to  the  future  glory  of  the  Church  rather  than  or- 
dained as  the  pattern  of  her  present;  conformation. 

But  none  of  these  conceptions  will  answer  the  demand 
of  our  proof-texts  or  the  dictates  of  common  sense.  The 
olive  tree,  for  example,  cannot  represent  invisible  unity 
alone,  for  the  casting  off  of  the  Jews  cannot  mean  the 
reprobation  of  their  souls,  but  the  visible  separation  of 
their  Church-State  from  legitimate  communion  with  a 
true  visible  Church  of  the  New  Testament.  Besides, 
the  fancied  unity  which  is  all  invisible,  tried  by  the  test 
of  our  scriptural  metaphor,  must  upset  the  perseverance 
of  the  saints  individually ;  for  if  there  be  such  a  whole- 
sale and  collective  excision  of  the  invisible  and  spiritual 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  459 

bonds,  individaal  saints  must  be  included  in  the  whole, 
and  of  course  be  liable  to  a  final  apostasy.  The  rage  of 
generalization  at  the  present  day,  which  eliminates  from 
the  essential  and  ultimate  idea  of  the  Church  all  need 
or  thought  of  organization  to  be  seen,  must  be  cautioned 
against  heresy,  which  will  creep  under  when  the  Church 
of  Christ  is  sublimated  so  beyond  the  conditions  of  re- 
deemed humanity.  Body  as  well  as  spirit  has  been 
redeemed.  As  each  ransomed  individual  is  visible  as 
well  as  invisible,  and  the  Logos  himself  wears  for 
ever  body  and  soul  upon  him,  so  does  the  Church  he 
governs.  "He  is  the  Head  of  the  body  the  Church." 
Body  [ffco/jta)  without  organization  is  absurdity  in  terms. 

Nor  will  this  invisible  unity  answer  the  emblem  of  a 
human  body  in  1  Cor.  xii.  There  the  apostle  speaks  of 
diversified  o;ifts,  which  belonijed  to  the  different  members 
then  extant  and  appearing,  palpable  as  the  human  body 
itself.  But  we  know  from  the  words  of  our  Lord  him- 
self that  these  same  gifts  might  then  and  afterward  be 
exercised,  without  any  such  invisible  union  to  the  Head, 
by  a  living  faith  :  "  Many  shall  say  unto  me,  in  that  day, 
Lord,  Lord,  have  we  not  prophesied  in  thy  name,  and  in 
thy  name  have  cast  out  devils?  ...  I  never  knew  you  ; 
depart  from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity."  Matt.  vii.  22,  23. 
Nor  will  it  answer  the  emblem  of  a  kingdom  (Matt,  xiii.), 
for  there  is  visible  and  invisible  mixture  there.  It  is 
a  field  sown  with  tares  as  well  as  with  wheat,  and 
left  in  this  mingled  condition  till  the  final  harvest  at 
the  end  of  the  w'orld.  Surely,  the  figure  means  a 
visible  Church-State,  and  of  course  external  unity  in 
the  structure. 

Neither  will  doctrinal  unity  alone  suffice  for  the  inti- 
mations of  Scripture,  many  particular  churches  adopting, 


460  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

one  after  another,  the  same  creed  and  similar  covenants. 
Sameness  is  not  unity  at  all  in  a  governmental  sense  or 
any  proper  sense  of  convergence.  A  platform  without 
any  joint  formality  of  declaration  and  conventional  au- 
thority enforcing  adhesion  is  but  a  signal  for  multiplied 
varieties  and  interminable  dissent.  Cambridge,  Boston, 
Saybrook,  are  not  exceptions.  Still  more  obviously  un- 
tenable is  the  hypothesis  of  particular  unity,  the  harmony 
of  members  in  one  little  or  local  congregation  as  a  mirror 
where  only  we  are  to  behold  that  magnificent  oneness 
which  inspired  prophecy  predicts  and  inspired  poetry 
has  sung.  On  this  plan  the  grace  of  brotherly  love 
is  just  as  complete  in  a  church  of  thirty  as  in  one  of 
three  hundred  members;  and  the  feud  which  would 
throw  a  prominent  church  into  fragments  abounds  only 
in  the  spirit  of  this  unity,  giving  us  many  unities  for 
one,  thus  multiplying  the  mirrors  in  which  the  charity 
of  Christendom  is  reflected.  We  might  as  well  sav  that 
the  household  of  a  single  family,  or  even  that  an  indi- 
vidual believer,  with  the  conflicting  laws  within  him 
between  his  members  and  his  mind  subordinated  by  the 
grace  of  God,  making  him  "  the  ecclesiastical  unit,"  is  an 
adequate  realization  of  Christian  unity  in  the  world  ;  for 
in  Eph.  iv.  13  the  whole  mystical  body  of  Christ  is  de- 
nominated "  a  perfect  man."  Unity  cannot  exist  with- 
out numbers. 

If,  then,  the  unity  which  God  requires  of  the  Church 
on  earth  be  not  merely  invisible,  doctrinal  or  particular, 
we  are  constrained  to  believe  that  a  visible  co-operation 
of  diversities  to  evangelize  the  world,  if  not  an  organized 
compactness  in  any  one  form,  is  the  destiny  of  Christian 
work  and  the  Christian  Church  for  all  time  and  con- 
summation.    The  instinct  of  Puritanism  has  ever  been 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  461 

this  way,  notwithstandiug  the  weakness  with  which 
it  crumbles  withiu.  Missions,  education,  higher  and 
lower  and  wider  progress  of  reformation,  loyalty  of 
patriotism,  refinement  of  morals,  attest  the  excellence 
of  her  planting.  But  in  all  this  the  Puritans  are  glori- 
ous by  going  hand  in  hand  with  other  Christians,  and 
such  co-operation  is  always  more  eifective  in  proportion 
to  the  completeness  of  orgauization  in  the  several  constit- 
uencies apart  which  combine  to  accomplish  one  great  end. 
It  is  no  valid  objection  to  the  plea  for  confederated 
unity  in  form  to  allege  that  it  has  never  yet  existed 
thi'ough  the  centuries  of  Christian  history  as  a  real 
and  absolute  Catholicism,  and,  owing  to  the  diversified 
condition  of  men  as  they  are  separated  by  climate,  char- 
acter and  government,  will  never  be  practicable.  There 
is  nothing  in  the  nature  of  ecclesiastical  polity  when 
it  is  made  fairly  representative,  nothing  in  sectarian 
bigotry  when  subdued  by  divine  grace  in  the  life,  and 
certainly  nothing  in  the  promises  of  the  gospel  and  the 
predicted  glory  of  the  Saviour's  kingdom,  to  forbid  au 
expansion  of  such  unity,  until  it  be  perfectly  ecumenical. 
The  catholic  spirit  of  Christianity  must  surely  be  equal 
to  the  influence  of  that  civilization  she  produces  and 
sustains.  A  congress  of  all  nations  might  be  had,  and 
we  have  seen  withiu  tlie  century  how  practicable  it  is 
for  mighty  communities  that  are  jealous  of  one  another, 
and  rivals  in  diplomacy  to  concert  and  consummate 
political  projects  which  involve  the  destinies  of  half  the 
globe;  and  can  we  believe  that  the  Church  of  Christ — 
"  the  fulness  of  Him  who  filleth  all  in  all  " — holding  so 
intimately  the  common  Head  in  heaven,  must  be  less 
able  to  manage,  by  a  common  conference,  the  visible 
interests  of  that  kingdom  which  can  never  be  moved? 


462  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Admitting,  however,  that  such  visible  unity  cannot 
be  ecumenical,  must  we,  therefore,  conclude  that  it 
should  never  be  national,  or  even  provincial  ?  As  well 
might  we  say  that,  because  all  nations  cannot  now  unite 
in  one  form  of  supreme  superintendence,  therefore  there 
should  be  uo  distinct  nationality  or  confederate  govern- 
ment on  earth.  Because  the  Church  cannot  have  a 
general  assembly  to  represent  the  whole  earth  in  eccle- 
siastical synod,  therefore  we  should  be  divided  into  as 
many  parts  as  there  are  congregations,  is  a  lame  con- 
clusion— as  much  as  to  say  that  because  the  secular 
speculation  of  men  cannot  have  a  concordat  to  control 
the  world  with  paramount  power  every  body  politic 
should  be  cut  up  into  as  many  principalities  as  there  are 
cities,  counties  or  corporations  of  autonomy. 

II.  The  purity  of  the  Church  demands  these  courts 
of  review.  The  errors  of  a  cono-reo-ation  are  more  bale- 
ful  than  those  of  an  individual  in  proportion  to  the 
strength  which  combination  or  aggregation  gives  to  any 
contagious  evil;  and  without  some  bond  of  union  wider 
than  that  of  a  particular  church  there  would  be  no  sanc- 
tion for  truth  and  holiness  beyond  the  accident  of  a 
majority  in  one  congregation.  Let  the  moiety  of  an 
independent  church  be  increased  by  a  single  vote,  and 
its  whole  character  is  changed.  The  faithful  testimony 
of  a  remnant  almost  equal  to  half  of  the  whole  body  is 
overborne  and  suppressed.  The  power  which  yesterday 
ruled  for  Christ  to-day  rebels  against  him.  Discipline 
is  trodden  down  or  turns  its  edge  against  the  conserva- 
tors of  truth  and  order.  Within  the  neighborhood 
of  this  oppressed  minority  may  be  large  bodies  of  true 
and  faithful  men  whose  affinity  would  secure  an  over- 
whelming force  upon  the  side  of  truth  and  right  if  it 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  463 

could  only  be  one  in  form  as  well  as  in  fact;  but  the 
accidental  erection  of  a  separate  house  for  worship  is 
allowed  to  sever  the  adherence  of  a  protesting  few  even 
from  the  prevailing  soundness  of  a  vicinage  in  the  body 
of  Christ,  and  they  must  either  take  the  leaven  of  a 
tainted  lump  or  separate,  with  the  apparent  evils  and 
the  real  disabilities  of  schism.  We  must,  therefore, 
have. an  organization,  to  discipline  congregations  as  well 
as  individuals,  and  to  arraign  majorities  no  less  than 
minorities  for  deflection  from  righteousness  and  abuse 
of  power. 

Opposed  to  the  safeguards  which  despotism  itself 
might  place  around  the  rights  of  individuals  Avill  be 
the  tyranny  of  masses  when  there  is  no  redress  of  appeal. 
The  popular  decision,  subject  to  a  thousand  influences 
of  a  fitful  and  partial  nature,  is  irreversible  save  by  the 
whims  of  its  own  fluctuation.  Judicatories  in  gradation 
are  the  remedy.  One  appeal  or  complaint  after  another, 
each  one  conducting  the  aggrieved  to  a  tribunal  more 
enlarged,  disinterested  and  free  from  local  influences 
which  had  prejudiced  his  cause,  will  be  within  the  reach 
of  every  oppressed  or  neglected  member.  To  this  privi- 
lege of  appeal,  which  opposes  a  majority  of  the  whole 
and  better  informed  to  the  majorities  of  a  petty  and 
local  nature,  it  is  no  valid  (objection  to  say  that  any 
council  may  err,  that  the  whole  lump  may  be  leavened 
and  the  general  majority  itself  may  be  despotic  and 
iniquitous.  The  probabilities  of  moral  calculation  are 
all  the  other  way,  according  to  Scripture  and  reason — so 
much  that  the  common  wisdom  of  men  all  the  world 
over,  and  in  all  ages,  when  balancing  the  civil  power  to 
which  we  are  subject,  finds  the  ascending  steps  of  resort 
to  courts  of  larger  representation,  if  not  number  also,  to 


464  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

be  the  only  refuge  and  the  last  vindication  hoped  for  in 
the  present  life.  Corruption  of  integrity  is  always  local 
before  it  is  general,  and  even  when  it  is  general  there  is 
hope  for  the  refugee  in  flying  from  passion  and  preju- 
dice even  if  he  cannot  entirely  avoid  pollution  on  the 
way  or  at  the  end.  So  it  is  in  every  department  of 
judicial  or  executive  power. 

But  how  much  jiiore  security  have  we  for  the  exercise 
of  justice  in  the  visible  Church,  where  Christ  reigns  by 
the  inhabitation  of  his  Spirit  as  the  Spirit  of  "  ])ower 
and  of  love  and  of  a  sound  mind  " — where  every  par- 
ticular church,  as  well  as  every  particular  bench,  in  the 
gradation  of  Session,  Presbytery  and  Synod,  has  its  own 
individuality  in  the  distribution  of  his  gifts  and  influ- 
ences, and  the  aggregate  expression  of  all  will  most 
likely  pronounce  fairly  the  mind  of  Him  who  is  "Judge 
of  all "  !  Facts  in  church  history  can  illustrate  this 
averment.  Within  the  present  century  the  independent 
churches  of  New  England  and  the  Presbyterian  Church 
of  Ireland  have  been  tried  alike  by  the  invasion  of 
Sociuian  heresy.  In  both  countries  it  began  sporadi- 
cally, in  particular  churches,  by  the  address  of  a  ration- 
alistic or  speculating  teacher,  winning  over,  usually,  a 
majority  of  the  parish.  But,  long  since,  the  Irish 
Church  was  purged  of  this  evil  by  the  strong  authoritv 
of  her  highest  judicatory,  while  the  American  churches 
tainted  with  this  error,  and  without  any  appellate  juris- 
diction over  them,  have  remained,  for  the  most  part,  in 
hopeless  perversion. 

We  do  not  shun  here  to  notice  how  Synods  or  coun- 
cils have  been  reproached  for  tyranny  in  every  age,  and 
how  much  modern  historians  charge  them  with  subvert- 
ing the  liberties  of  the  people  and  surrendering  power 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  465 

to  the  establishment  of  hierarchical  usurpations.  It  is 
enough  to  assert,  as  we  pass,  that  Synods  never  proved 
to  be  despotic  or  subservient  to  despotism  until  they 
were  dismantled  in  form  and  deprived  of  the  popular 
element,  the  representatives  of  the  people,  ruling  elders 
in  their  quorum,  as  the  primitive  organizations  had 
passed  away.  When  the  people  ceased  to  be  fairly  repre- 
sented in  councils,  and  these  became  assemblies  of  clergy 
alone,  and  such  ecclesiastics  imagined  themselves  a  priest- 
hood in  the  old  Levitical  sense,  and  three  orders  instead 
of  one,  then  only  did  the  Church  become  despotic  in  all 
her  Synods,  and  of  course  her  authorities  in  every  form, 
until  even  the  right  of  private  judgment  in  her  member- 
ship was  withdrawn  from  the  people. 

It  is  a  fact  which  all  men  may  now  see,  and  which 
all  historians  should  bring  to  the  front,  since  medieval 
apostasy  has   been  detected   and   its  darkness   rifted  in 
every  cloud,   that  assemblies   which   incorporate  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people,  both  mediate  and  immediate, 
ministers  and  elders,  are  the  bulwark  of  popular  free- 
dom and  the  proper  equality  of  men.    Systems  opposed  to 
this  reformation  are  not  much  disposed  to  hold  councils 
at  all  in  the  Church.    There  was  no  general  council  called 
in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  for  some  three  hundred 
years  after  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  it  has  been  only  in 
the  agony  of  a  crisis  in  which  temporal  power  is  being 
wrested  from  the  papal  grasp  or  some  dogma  of  spiritual 
supremacy  is  in  danger  of  being  lost  that  such  councils 
have  been  summoned  in  this  generation;  and  when  as- 
sembled, the  world  knows,  it  has  been  only  to  define  and 
to  register  what  despotism  had  already  prepared  and  de- 
termined.    So    it    is   with   a  hierarchy   in    the   Church 
of  England,  whose  "  Convocation,"  though  composed  of 

30 


466  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

ecclesiastics,  can  hardly  be  accounted  ecclesiastical  at  all 
in  the  proper  business  of  church-power.  For  some  two 
hundred  years  it  has  convened  only  to  be  prorogued.  It 
began  by  the  mandate  of  a  civil  monarch,  Edward  I., 
"for  the  sake  of  obtaining  subsidies  from  the  clerical 
body."  Its  main  business  was  internal  taxation  ;  and 
when  the  power  of  taxing  themselves  was  withdrawn 
in  1644,  the  privilege  of  voting  for  "  knights  of  the 
shire  "  was  granted  instead.  The  transported  hierarchy 
of  England  to  this  country  has  wisely  and  nobly  made 
their  Convocation — here  called  Convention — more  spir- 
itual in  its  object  and  exercises  and  more  conformed  to 
the  surroundings  of  republican  freedom.  The  lay  ele- 
ment is  delegated  here  to  the  spiritual  assembly,  and  the 
result  is  seen  to  be  a  decided  amelioration  even  of  an 
exclusive  arrogancy  which  otherwise  could  have  taken 
little  or  no  root  in  American  soil. 

III.  Investiture  of  the  ministry  must  be  reviewed  by 
authorities  over  both  minister  and  people.  Acknowl- 
edged principles  of  ordination  require  superior  judica- 
tories to  watch  and  guard  them.  Suffrage  of  the  people 
must  be  recognized  and  approved  by  those  who  preside 
and  judge  of  their  votes,  and  not  by  themselves  alone 
as  both  voters  and  judges.  Combined  with  the  popular 
element  must  be  an  official  element,  according  to  a  rela- 
tive necessitv  of  order  throuo-h  all  asres:  and  this  combi- 
nation  must  be  scrutinized  and  reported  with  wider  com- 
pass to  the  great  community  of  believers  by  a  larger 
representation  than  the  party  of  ordainers,  to  indicate 
that  each  intrant  of  the  ministry  belongs  to  the  whole 
visible  Church  as  well  as  to  the  particular  one  where  he 
has  been  authenticated.  And  when  the  people  have 
chosen   a   pastor  from  those  who   make   trial  of  their 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  467 

gifts  before  them  or  before  others  of  the  Church  to 
certify  their  competency  in  good  report,  there  is  to  be 
in  Congregationalism  itself  at  the  present  day  resort  to 
a  ministry  outside  of  the  congregation  to  solemnize  the 
ceremony  of  induction  to  the  charge.  Of  course  the 
officers  gathered  for  this,  duty  from  the  vicinage  or  else- 
where will  exercise  their  function  at  discretion,  and  not 
as  a  task  imposed  merely  ;  but  such  discretion  is  a  virtual 
review  and  control  of  what  the  particular  church  has 
done  in  these  premises.  The  congregation,  by  taking 
their  guides  from  the  hands  of  overseers  in  the  neighbor- 
hood summoned  or  invited  to  decide  on  his  fitness,  do 
submit  their  own  most  important  action  to  an  authorita- 
tive revision  by  another  judicatory,  no  matter  what  its 
name,  which  is  higher  in  the  reference  and  not  responsi- 
ble to  them  for  its  action. 

IV.  The  guaranty  of  ministerial  faithfulness  demands 
a  judicatory  higher  than  that  of  any  one  congregation, 
else  the  people  may  venture  to  arraign  their  own  pastor 
and  become  party,  witness  and  judge  themselves;  which 
is  manifestly  inconsistent  with  eternal  justice  and  all  the 
ordinary  principles  of  judicial  right  and  safety.  He 
must  be  arraigned  at  a  higher  court  and  tried  by  his 
own  peers,  and  to  receive  and  adjudicate  the  popular 
impeachment  is  to  hold  jurisdiction  over  the  people,  they 
having  already  judged  enough  by  making  accusation. 
There  is  no  possible  equity  which  is  not  accidental  in  the 
case  without  process  before  another  tribunal,  and  still 
another,  it  may  be,  for  escape  from  passion  and  preju- 
dice, which  are  always  the  worse  as  they  are  pent  iu  the 
confines  of  one  locality.  Hence  it  is  that  consistency 
itself  between  the  offended  people  and  their  offeuding 
minister  among  independent  churches  will  so  often  let 


468  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  latter  go  without  attempting  censure  at  all,  because 
it  is  impracticable  in  such  a  system,  having  no  appellate 
sanction  to  seek  or  to  see.  The  common  remedy  against 
unfaithfulness,  or  even  malfeasance,  in  office  must  be  the 
mere  dissolution  of  a  contract  between  minister  and  peo- 
ple, which  obviously  fails  to  attain  the  ends  of  discipline 
if  he  be  unworthy,  and  must  be  cruel  injustice  to  him  if 
he  be  worthy.  Dilemma  of  this  kind  was  surely  not  seen 
by  the  apostle  John  while  peering  into  the  Apocalyptic 
future  of  the  Church  and  charging  "  the  angels  of  the 
seven  churches  in  Asia."  The  only  reprehension  he 
uttered  in  writing  to  any  of  them  was  for  the  positive 
neglect  of  discipline ;  and  laxity  in  this,  for  want  of  an 
adequate  and  authorized  tribunal  to  enforce  it,  does  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  his  ken  at  all  in  any  vision. 
Rev.  ii.  Vexatious  alternative  is  death  to  any  church, 
moreover,  and  the  hanging  balance  must  be  turned  by 
some  casting  vote  which  can  be  given  only  by  the  hand 
of  a  presiding  superior. 

V.  The  moral  power  of  the  Church  on  earth  should 
have  judicatories  in  gradation  as  courts  of  review.  Even 
if  a  multitude  of  particular  churches  independent  of  one 
another  could  unite  upon  the  same  platform  of  faith  and 
the  same  testimony  against  error,  one  after  another,  also, 
with  unbroken  uniformity,  how  feeble  in  moral  force 
would  be  the  numeration  compared  with  the  energy 
of  one  high  representative  assembly  deciding,  not  by 
the  speech  of  a  solitary  agent  who  could  persuade  one 
small  meeting  after  another  without  being  confronted 
with  any  rival  and  opposite  opinions,  but  by  the  vote 
of  deliberative  wisdom,  acting  under  the  great  respon- 
sibility of  consultation  for  the  whole  body  of  Christ ! 
There   is  all  the  disadvantage  of  dispersion,  obscurity 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  469 

and  accident  in  the  one  case,  and  all  the  advantage  of 
considerate,  conspicuous  and  concentrated  wisdom  in  the 
other.  And,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the  world  is  but  little 
impressed  with  testimony  in  piecemeal  compared  with 
what  is  pronounced  in  collective  capacity.  In  all  other 
kinds  of  organization  primary  bodies  of  men  seek  to 
converge  their  power  in  some  general  centre  of  more 
extended  representation ;  and  why  should  this  dictate 
of  instinct  and  reflection  alike  have  no  adequate  scope 
in  shaping  the  visible  Church? 

It  is  incomparably  more  important  for  the  Church 
than  for  the  State,  in  exercising  its  fair  moral  force,  to 
have  a  collective  expression  of  its  wisdom  and  as  nearly 
total  as  can  be  realized  in  one  representation,  for  the 
obvious  reason  that  it  is  really  one  body  in  its  connection 
with  a  common  Head.  The  nation  comes  from  multi- 
plicity of  membership  built  upon  constituencies  resting 
on  diversities  which  may  have  but  little  or  no  com- 
munity of  social  life,  and  a  fraction  of  which  may  be- 
come another  nation  or  body  politic  in  the  fullest  mean- 
ing of  nationality.  An  island  as  well  as  a  continent 
may  suffice  in  geographical  boundary  to  make  it  com- 
plete in  all  the  attributes  as  well  as  symbols  of  sover- 
eignty, but  not  so  the  Church  :  she  comes  from  unity 
and  rests  on  the  foundation  of  prophets  and  apostles, 
Jesus  Christ  himself  being  the  chief  corner-stone,  and 
every  turn  of  metaphor  in  revelation  makes  him  the 
fountain  of  her  life,  her  influence,  her  authority,  her 
extension.  Out  of  his  fulness,  the  Godhead  borlily,  we 
all  receive,  individuals  and  denominations  called  by  his 
name,  grace  for  grace,  until  we  are  made  complete  in 
him. 

The  Church  is  therefore  a  dismembered  body  and  a 


470  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

defective  community  just  in  proportion  as  there  is  left 
out  of  her  visible  organization  any  true  members  of 
Christ.  Her  true  visibility  is  not  a  fence  nor  a  crucible, 
nor  yet  a  floodgate.  More  like  a  tabernacle  it  is,  or 
ought  to  be — movable  and  not  destructible,  choice  and 
not  exclusive,  open  to  all  in  the  outer  court,  and  this  not 
to  be  trampled  down  at  the  rush  and  dust  of  concourse. 
It  belongs  to  the  people  in  common,  but  is  to  be  handled, 
in  moving,  erecting  and  disparting,  only  by  the  divinely 
chosen  tribe  in  waiting :  "  When  the  tabernacle  sotteth 
forward,  the  Levites  shall  take  it  down  :  and  when  the 
tabernacle  is  to  be  pitched,  the  Levites  shall  set  it  up." 
This  delineation  by  a  figure  may  describe,  but  cannot,  of 
course,  define,  the  visibility  of  Church  organization, 
which  baffles  outline  of  the  whole,  as  much  as  invisi- 
bility does  the  numbering  of  spiritual  varieties.  But 
we  see  that  "  all  have  not  the  same  office."  Every  in- 
dividual apart,  every  family  apart,  every  particular 
church  apart,  every  local  consociation,  every  general 
association  or  conference,  apart,  every  world-wide  de- 
nomination apart,  has  its  own  individuality,  its  own 
peculiar  unction,  its  main  part  to  contribute,  in  the 
action  of  the  whole  body,  or  it  lacks  the  just  moral 
force  of  Christ  on  earth.  If  "to  every  one  of  us  grace 
is  given,  according  to  the  measure  of  the  gift  of  Christ," 
and  it  is  so  that  every  individual  soul  among  the  re- 
deemed has  its  own  form  and  force  and  symmetry  of 
Christian  character,  then  must  there  be  abatement  in 
the  power  of  the  whole  when  there  is  formal  separation 
and  division  in  its  visible  action  upon  earth  without 
formal  co-operation. 

Denominations   in    the   same   country,  educated    and 
evangelical,  with   like   immunities  and  social   influence 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  471 

and  missionary  zeal,  are  conspicuously  distinguished  for 
diiferent  characters  in  the  body  of  Christ.  Say  that  the 
Presbyterian  Church  distinctively  carries  the  banner  of 
truth  ;  the  Congregational  Church,  the  banner  of  lib- 
erty ;  the  Protestant  Episcopal,  that  of  order ;  the  Bap- 
tist, that  of  ordinances ;  and  the  Methodist,  that  of 
gospel  aggression.  The  full  and  perfect  ideal  of  Christ 
incarnate  which  the  visible  Church  is  required  to  express 
will  be  found  in  the  combination  and  interfusion  of  all 
these  elements  in  due  proportion.  The  visible  encase- 
ment of  them  in  one  grand  "  representation  of  all  the 
churches " — which  is  not  impossible,  as  it  defines  our 
General  Assembly,  comprising  an  equal  number  of  di- 
versities that  are  churchly — would  be  oneness  enough  to 
win  the  world  to  Christ  and  seem  to  be  a  second  coming 
of  his  person  ;  and  until  it  is  attained  let  us  anticipate 
the  coming  by  rounding  the  completeness  of  such  assem- 
blage and  interfusion  among  ourselves  of  each  denom- 
ination concerned.  And  the  highest  and  best  altitude 
for  observ^ation  with  a  view  to  the  ultimate  unity  of  all 
is  reached  by  ascending  the  grades  of  representation  to 
the  summit  of  Presbytery,  and  there  looking  for  the  Son 
of  man  to  come  in  his  kingdom. 

SCRIPTURALNESS  OF  JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION. 
Preliminary  to  the  more  direct  evidence  that  courts 
of  review  are  divinely  sanctioned  is  one  inquiry,  at 
least,  respecting  the  numbers  gathered,  especially  at 
Jerusalem,  in  the  planting  of  the  Christian  Church  there 
and  elsewhere.  It  is  clear  that  many  more  belonged  to 
that  church  than  could  be  connected  in  one  and  the  same 
congregation  for  the  purposes  of  a  particular  church, 
whether  worship   or   discipline.      This    being  evinced, 


472  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

whatever  of  unity  in  the  way  of  ecclesiastical  procedure 
the  sacred  narrative  reveals  will  go  to  establish  the  prin- 
ciple of  one  superintendence  over  different  churches. 

Without  extending  our  inquiries  to  Antioch,  Ephesus 
and  Corinth,  where  we  might  obtain  similar  illustration, 
though  less  unquestional)le,  we  may  be  satisfied  with 
grouping  the  facts  on  record  respecting  the  formation 
at  Jerusalem.  Before  our  Lord  had  finished  his  work 
there  must  have  been  many  thousands  about  Jerusalem 
openly  or  secretly  attached  to  his  cause.  Of  the  minis- 
ters only  who  had  waited  on  his  instruction,  and  whom 
he  sent  forth,  it  was  said  by  their  foes  that  the  world 
had  gone  after  him.  After  all  the  offence  of  his  cruci- 
fixion, and  the  defection  and  dispersion  it  occasioned, 
there  must  have  been  five  hundred,  at  least,  adhering  at 
his  resurrection.  To  this  number  three  thousand  were 
added  on  the  day  of  Pentecost.  It  is  vain  to  allege  that 
these  conversions  occurred  among;  the  foreio-n  Jews  or 
strangers  who  were  merely  on  a  visit  for  the  festive 
occasion  and  formed  no  portion  of  the  settled  inhabi- 
tants. The  Israelites  generally  who  belonged  to  the 
Dispersion  did  not  attend  the  festivals  at  Jerusalem 
ordinarily,  and  the  Jews  occasionally  resorting  could 
not  have  made  the  multitude  whom  Peter  addressed, 
and  whom  he  charged  as  })articipants  in  the  murder  of 
Jesus.  He  "lifted  up  his  voice"  and  called  them  dwell- 
ers at  Jerusalem,  and  not  sojourners  merely — a  different 
word  in  the  original.  Even  if  they  had  been  born 
abroad,  they  were  now  citizens  there,  attracted  by  the 
religious  advantages  of  that  metropolis :  "  There  were 
dwelling  at  Jerusalem,  Jews,  devout  men  out  of  every 
nation  under  heaven."  Acts  ii.  5. 

But,  large  as  the  first  accession  was,  under  apostolic 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  473 

preaching  an  increase  continued  in  the  same  proportion  : 
"  The  Lord  added  daily  to  tlie  church  of  such  as  should 
be  saved."  After  another  sermon  by  Peter  (Acts  iv.), 
we  are  told,  many  of  them  who  heard  the  word  be- 
lieved, and  the  number  of  the  men  was  about  five  thou- 
sand. How  many  more  in  the  families  of  the  men  were 
added  we  may  well  conjecture  from  the  proportion  of 
women  who  waited  for  the  coming  of  Messiah  and  sig- 
nalized their  prompt  and  persevering  faith  when  it  was 
the  very  darkest  hour  and  most  perilous  adventure  to 
believe.  But,  taking  the  men  alone,  we  have  now  at 
least  eight  thousand  five  hundred  members  in  the  church 
at  Jerusalem.  Yet  after  all  this  we  are  told  that  multi- 
tudes both  of  men  and  women  were  added  by  the  mira- 
cle at  the  death  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira,  and  still 
afterward,  we  read,  the  word  of  God  increased  and  the 
number  of  disciples  multiplied  greatly,  and  a  great 
company  of  the  priests  M^ere  obedient  unto  the  faith. 
And  how  many  of  the  people  must  have  gone  with  this 
leading  of  their  priests  may  be  inferred  from  the  lan- 
guage of  their  enemies,  who,  speaking  of  the  apostles, 
said,  "  They  are  filling  Jerusalem  with  their  doctrine," 
Jerusalem  being  at  that  time  the  most  populous  city 
in  the  world,  according  to  Josephus. 

Here,  however,  it  is  objected  that  these  gathering 
thousands  must  have  been  scattered  away  from  the  city 
by  persecution  which  raged  at  the  death  of  Ste])heu 
(Acts  viii.),  and  consequently  we  have  no  data  for  be- 
lieving that  more  were  left  at  Jerusalem  than  were  suffi- 
cient for  a  single  congregation  and  a  particular  church. 
But  we  answer — (1)  That  there  is  no  evidence  of  that 
persecution  being  continued  beyond  a  single  day.  The 
sacred  historian   Luke  is  remarkably  precise  in  the  use 


474  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  words  expressing  time.  When  the  duration  is  in- 
definite or  uncertain,  he  says  "about"  that  time.  But 
here  he  is  exact,  saying  "  at  that  time  "  when  '*  Saul  was 
consenting  to  the  death  "  of  Stephen  (iv  ixecuTj  rfj  i^/uspa), 
as  if  the  sudden  violence  of  a  mob  instigated  by  one 
wishing  to  "make  havoc  of  the  church"  was  the  nature 
of  that  persecution.  (2)  It  has  been  noticed  previously 
that  the  scattered  ones  of  the  occasion  were  probably 
ministers  of  gifts  inade  prominent  and  obnoxious  by  the 
notability  of  their  preaching :  "  They  went  everywhere 
preaching  the  word."  ver.  4.  (3)  The  original  word 
for  "  scattered  "  here  means  voluntary  as  well  as  violent 
dispersion,  for  which  the  Greek  has  another  term  dis- 
tinctly, and  in  this  place  it  seems  to  express  precisely 
the  obedience  of  ministers  to  their  Master's  bidding: : 
"  When  they  persecute  you  in  one  city,  flee  ye  to  an- 
other." (4)  The  Jews  who  constituted  the  persecuting 
mob  had  no  power  at  the  time  to  inflict  the  punishment 
of  death,  and  the  murder  of  Stephen  was  refractory 
offence  to  the  Roman  as  well  as  cruel  intolerance  to  the 
Christian.  For  alleged  offence  against  their  own  law 
they  might  incarcerate  only,  at  the  worst ;  but  all  the 
prisons  of  Jerusalem  could  not  then  contain  the  multi- 
tudinous converts  of  Christianity.  Devout  men  re- 
mained free  to  carry  Stephen  to  his  burial. 

We  are  told  after  this  and  the  persecution  by  Herod 
that  "  the  word  of  God  grew  and  multiplied,"  and  such 
was  its  triumph  that  the  apostle  James  said  to  Paul  at 
Jerusalem,  "Thou  seest,  brother,  how  many  thousands 
of  Jews  there  are  which  believe,"  in  corresponding  reply 
to  the  recital  of  success  anion ^  the  Gentiles.  The  em- 
phasis  of  "  thousands  "  here  is  myriads  in  the  original — 
a  number  indefinitely  large,   and    never  less  than  ten 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  475 

thousand — wherever  it  is  used  elsewhere  iu  the  New 
Testament.  Even  the  number  of  ministers  to  be  noticed 
in  Jerusalem  as  identified  with  that  locality  must  indi- 
cate indefinite  myriads  of  disciples  apparently  there. 
The  body  of  apostles  engaged  in  preaching  so  busily  as 
not  to  have  time  for  distribution  of  alms  to  the  poor 
must  have  had  more  audience  collectively  than  the 
largest  house  in  Christendom  at  this  day  could  accom- 
modate with  room.  Added  to  apostles  must  have  been 
a  large  number  of  gifted  ministers — prophets,  evangel- 
ists and  eldei's,  including,  as  some  conjecture  well,  the 
whole  seventy  whom  our  Lord  had  sent  forth  to  usher 
his  own  ministry  in  Judea.  That  a  multitude  of  such 
preachers,  numbering  a  hundred  at  the  lowest  calcula- 
tion, should  be  confined,  with  all  their  missionary  ardor, 
to  one  congregation  is  utterly  incredible.  The  same  in- 
ference is  made  more  decidedly  when  considering  the 
many  languages  spoken  in  their  ministrations.  Devout 
men  of  Parthia,  Media,  Elam,  Mesopotamia,  Cappa- 
docia,  Pontus,  Asia,  Phrygia,  Pamphylia  and  the  parts 
of  Libya  and  about  Cyrene,  and  also  of  Rome,  Crete 
and  Arabia,  heard  in  their  own  language  the  Avon- 
derful  works  of  God.  No  one  dialect  was  ever  known 
to  be  intelligible  to  such  diversity  of  auditors,  and  no 
miracle  of  tongues  had  been  wrought  if  the  preaching 
there  and  then  were  done  through  interpreters. 

These  facts  alone  suffice  to  prove  that  the  church  at 
Jerusalem  must  have  been  more  than  one  congregation 
meeting  in  one  place,  hearing  one  preacher  at  a  time, 
organized  in  one  body  of  all  the  people  discipled  for 
the  exercise  of  worship,  discipline  or  deliberation  on 
questions  of  moment  iu  relation  to  Christian  doctrine, 
polity  or   life,  even    if,  instead   of  private   and    upper 


476  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

chambers  to  meet  Id,  they  had  the  space  of  a  camp- 
meeting  for  an  area  of  sacred  transactions.  When  we 
read  in  Acts  ii.  41-47  that  "all  who  believed  were 
together,  and  had  all  things  in  common,"  we  cannot 
understand  more  than  a  community  visible  in  mutual 
intercourse  of  intimacy  and  sympathy  and  temporal 
benefaction.  When  Ave  read  in  Acts  iii.  H  about  "all" 
the  people  running  together  in  "  Solomon's  porch,"  and 
"  all "  being  there  with  one  accord,  we  see  that  this  noun 
of  multitude  means  only  a  promiscuous  resort  of  the  peo- 
ple to  the  apostles  there  to  see  and  hear  the  wonders 
wrought  by  them,  the  "  one  accord  "  being  among  the 
apostles  themselves,  without  the  slightest  indication  that 
such  assemblage  was  churchly  in  its  meaning  or  signif- 
icance. 

Nor  is  there  any  force  in  the  objection  that  they  were 
all  in  one  place  to  elect  deacons  at  the  direction  of  the 
apostles  (Acts  vi.);  for,  besides  the  fact  that  this  was 
done  while  the  community  was  comparatively  small,  it 
was  not  necessary  that  electors  sliould  signify  their  choice 
in  one  spot,  or  that  they  are  to  be  considered  one  par- 
ticular church  in  doing  so,  any  more  than  the  meeting 
of  men  from  different  villages  at  the  same  election  pre- 
cinct in  the  civil  commonwealth  proves  them  to  belong 
to  one  ward  or  corporation.  It  is  not  necessary  to  the 
conception  of  different  particular  churches  in  one  city 
that  each  one  should  have  its  own  board  of  deacons. 
If  the  whole  Christian  Church  existed  for  a  time 
before  the  reconstruction  of  a  diaconate  by  the  apostles, 
we  can  easily  see  how  one  board  might  serve  a  number 
of  particular  churches  in  one  city,  as  for  a  time  in 
modern   history  at    Geneva,   Edinburgh  and   Glasgow. 

In  view  of  pertinacious  and  minute  objections  like  these 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  477 

on  the  ])art  of  Independency,  it  may  well  occasion  sur- 
prise that  able  and  distinguished  apologists  for  Chris- 
tianity should  be  willing  to  surrender  at  any  point  of 
divergence  from  historic  churches  one  of  our  strongest 
defences  against  infidelity.  The  rapidity  with  which  the 
gospel,  in  its  first  promulgation,  triumphed  over  prejudice 
and  pride,  ignorance  and  learning,  power  and  multitudes, 
in  winning  converts  to  Christ,  is  a  chief  bulwark  on 
earth  for  him  and  his  cause,  which  must  be  greatly  im- 
paired by  the  scanty  planting  at  Jerusalem,  where  it 
began,  if  but  one  congregation  there  could  be  made  out 
for  a  purpose  after  twenty  years  of  renowned  success  in 
gathering  members  by  the  labor  of  apostles,  and  of  scores 
of  ministers  besides,  actuated  by  the  ordinary  and  extra- 
ordinary power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  their  preaching, 
polity  and  discipline. 

The  evidence  being  irresistible  that  the  church  in 
Jerusalem  was  too  numerous  to  constitute  but  one  par- 
ticular church  for  the  purposes  of  worship  in  one  house 
and  government  by  the  joint  and  immediate  voting  of 
the  people,  we  come  to  see  that  unity  both  in  worship 
and  in  government  must  have  been  by  representation 
organized  in  office  and  assembly  of  officers.  Hence  the 
significant  singular  number,  "church,"  invariably  used, 
to  denominate  the  gathering  myriads  evangelized  in  that 
great  city.  We  never  see  mentioned  the  "cliurchcs"  in 
Jerusalem,  but  nine  times  we  read  of  the  ''church,"  and 
twice  the  "  whole  church,"  there.  This  means  an  organ- 
ized unification.  No  mere  fraternization  for  counsel  or 
advice  would  thus  be  denominated  invariably  as  an  unit. 
No  convocation  of  all  the  peoi)le  could  have  made  the 
record  which  inspired  history  has  transmitted  of  harmo- 
nious transaction  and  instant  despatch  that  characterize 


478  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

in  every  age  the  bench  of  a  court  or  the  conventicle  of 
choice  representatives.  No  association  or  consociation 
of  independent  churches  would  ever  drop  the  plural 
from  rolls  of  their  constituency.  The  convergence  of 
democracy  in  one  title  must  always  make  it  represen- 
tative. 

Happily,  the  inference  we  make  from  the  facts  already 
cited  has  been  confirmed  and  illustrated  by  the  example 
of  a  synod  or  council  held  at  Jerusalem  and  recorded  by 
the  highest  of  all  authority  in  the  ministration  of  the 
Spirit.  It  is  found  in  Acts,  fifteenth  chapter.  This 
exceedingly  valuable  and  suggestive  record  furnishes 
the  great  principle  of  gradation  in  judicatories  as  well 
as  their  constitution  by  representatives  of  the  people; 
and  it  should  be  carefully  premised  that  the  principle  is 
all  we  need  to  consider  in  this  contention.  The  ratio  of 
representation  must  always  be  naturally  and  historically 
a  changeable  quantity ;  it  could  not  be  adjusted  for  all 
places  and  times  to  come  in  the  forming  state  of  the 
Church.  And  even  the  constituents  of  the  judicatory 
itself  may  have  been  somewhat  irregular  in  the  excited 
and  tumultuous  agitations  of  the  primitive  age.  "Breth- 
ren "  without  office  or  special  appointment  may  have 
pressed  into  the  deliberating  assembly  to  speak  and  to 
vote  also  while  as  yet  no  rules  had  been  formulated  to 
discriminate  the  proper  commission  of  members  or  the 
method  of  proceeding.  Especially  when  we  consider 
the  intensely  interesting  subject  for  which  mainly  the 
assembly  was  convoked,  the  singular  diffusion  of  gifts 
among  unofficial  church-members,  and  the  peculiar 
blending  of  all  believers  with  their  teachers  in  the 
character  of  "  a  royal  priesthood,"  which  that  initial 
age    exhibited,    we   cannot    wonder   if    other   elements 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  479 

mingled  with  "apostles  and  elders"  in  the  quorum 
and  the  vote  of  the  first  General  Assembly  held  at 
Jerusalem. 

But  even  this  natural  explanation  of  the  term  "  breth- 
ren," occurring  once  in  the  phrases  which  enumerate  the 
components  of  that  assembly,  should  not  be  reckoned  ex- 
ceptional irregularity  at  all  or  a  promiscuous  mingling 
of  men  without  orders  in  the  memorable  first  meeting 
of  a  synod  at  Jerusalem.  For,  beyond  question,  a 
varied  ministry  was  now  in  the  field,  ordained  de  facto 
by  the  endowments  of  Pentecost,  deputies  of  the  apostles 
settling  others  in  ordination  without  settling  themselves, 
representing  missionary  work  emphatically,  coming  in  to 
report  more  than  to  vote,  interested  in  the  opening  ses- 
sions of  the  council  more  than  in  the  subsequent  debates, 
privileged  to  come  and  to  go  according  to  the  docket  more 
than  according  to  rules  of  order.  Hence  the  term  is  used 
in  this  connection  as  it  is  in  2  Cor.  viii.  23  :  "  Or  our 
brethren  be  inquired  of,  they  are  the  messengers  of  the 
churches,  and  the  glory  of  Christ."  Even  private  and 
unofficial  believers  were  clothed  with  representative  func- 
tion when  sent  as  messengers  from  one  church  to  an- 
other, and  undoubtedly  "  the  Church,"  and  "  the  whole 
Church,"  consisting  of  believers  in  Christ,  must  have 
made  their  influence  felt  and  respected,  as  it  is  actually 
noted  in  the  record  by  such  phrases.  Be  this  as  it  may, 
the  constitutional  assemblage  was  ministers  and  elders 
(ver.  6),  "  The  ajwstles  and  elders  came  together  for  to 
consider  of  this  matter,"  precisely  as  the  reference  had 
been  made  at  Antioch  to  the  general  assembly  under  this 
form  of  designation  for  the  component  members. 

The  reference  was  brought  up  to  that  council  by  the 
hands  of   Paul  and   Barnabas,  and  "certain   other  of 


480  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

them."  It  was  a  crucial  question  of  that  crisis  in  the 
Church,  involving  the  rights  and  duties  of  Gentile  con- 
verts and  the  breaking  down  of  the  middle  wall  between 
Jew  and  Gentile.  Whether  they  should  "  keep  the  law 
of  Moses "  and  be  circumcised  as  well  as  baptized  in 
order  to  be  saved  was  the  question  which  certain  travel- 
lers from  Judea  forced  into  a  debate  with  Paul  and 
Barnabas  at  Antioch,  and  after  "  no  small  dissension 
and  disputation "  there  it  was  "  determined  that  Paul 
and  Barnabas  and  certain  other  of  them  should  go  up 
to  Jerusalem  unto  the  apostles  and  elders  about  this 
question."  Here  was  a  smaller  portion  of  the  Church 
sending  commissioners  to  a  larger,  a  lower  judicatory  to 
a  higher,  a  representation  of  some  to  a  "  representation 
of  all  the  churches."  The  very  same  constituents  of 
authority  existed  at  Antioch  as  at  Jerusalem.  With 
Paul,  an  apostle,  were  associated  "  prophets  and  teach- 
ers," including  Barnabas  and  "certain  other  of  them," 
who  were  probably  ruling  elders,  all  presbyters  in  rank, 
"  apostles,  elders  and  brethren  " — a  church,  indeed,  but 
not  the  whole  Church.  A  question  of  so  much  import- 
ance was  ecumenical  just  then,  and  needed  a  general 
council,  not  only  for  collective  wisdom  in  the  decision, 
but  for  universal  unity  in  the  acceptance. 

These  commissioners  "  were  brought  on  their  way  by 
the  Church,"  reporting  the  conversion  of  Gentiles  as 
they  travelled  and  diffusing  joy  wherever  they  lodged 
on  the  journey — a  picture,  this,  which  recalls  the  ex- 
perience of  ministers  and  elders  in  past  generations  here 
as  they  pressed  on  to  the  General  Assembly,  when  trav- 
elling was  slower  and  hospitality  livelier  than  at  present. 
And  the  likeness  of  that  errand  to  Jerusalem  in  primi- 
tive times   may  well   suggest  the   identity   of   Presby- 


J UDIC'A TORIES  IN  GRADATION.  481 

terianisra  as  it  proceeds  from  the  lower  and  limited 
jurisdiction,  where  a  case  originated,  to  the  highest 
representative  tribunal  for  a  final  decision  of  the  visi- 
ble Church.  These  commissioners  from  Antioch,  it  is 
apparent,  had  seats  among  "  the  apostles  and  elders  "  of 
that  original  council  and  participated  in  deliberations, 
just  as  now  representatives  from  a  lower  judicatory, 
coming  to  be  seated  in  a  higher,  may  freely  discuss  and 
vote  on  a  reference  they  bring,  while  precluded  from 
voting  on  appeal  and  complaint  in  which  they  have  been 
originally  interested  ;  and  when  a  conclusion  was  at- 
tained by  the  Assembly,  the  report  of  it  was  formally 
returned  to  Antioch,  not  by  the  representatives  only, 
Paul  and  Barnabas,  who  had  carried  up  the  overture, 
but  by  chosen  men  of  "  their  own  company  "  along  with 
these  brethren,  that  the  latter  might  not  be  challenged 
or  suspected  of  gaining  a  partisan  triumph  in  the  de- 
cision, and  not  that  they  should  be  considered  as  a  dif- 
ferent party  from  the  council  itself.  For  the  letter  of 
promulgation  identified  them,  as  members  of  the  body 
assembled,  "  with  our  beloved  Barnabas  and  Paul." 

The  decision  itself  must  prove  that  it  was  reached  by 
a  representative  assembly  and  governing  "  company " 
rather  than  by  a  crowd  of  public  and  private  members 
togetJier  at  Jerusalem.  It  was  not  an  advice  merelv  of 
one  church  to  another,  or  of  one  association  of  inde- 
pendent churches  to  another,  which  might  be  freely 
accepted  or  declined,  but  an  injunction  of  declarative 
authority  in  the  Lord,  binding  upon  all  Christendom  as 
then  constituted.  Apostles  were  members  component 
by  divine  appointment ;  prophets  were  members  by  the 
demonstration  of  gifts  from  the  Holy  Ghost;  elders 
were  members  by  delegation  from  tlie  people,  with  Avhom 

31 


482  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

is  the  residuary  deposit  of  power  on  earth,  and  whom 
all  officers  that  are  not  usurpers  must  represent  through 
every  age.  Enactment  by  such  a  composite  assemblage 
may  well  be  presumed  authoritative  in  the  way  of  de- 
cree as  much  as  of  counsel,  and  more.  Hence  in  the  next 
chapter  (Acts  xvi.  4)  that  decision  is  called  "decrees" 
{doyftaza) — "the  decrees  that  were  ordained  of  the  apos- 
tles and  elders  which  were  at  Jerusalem."  Stronger 
lauo-uafje  could  not  be  used  to  denote  authoritative  de- 
liverauce.  The  term  rendered  "decrees"  is  found  in 
four  other  places  of  the  New  Testament,  in  every  one 
of  which  it  expresses  enactment  by  governing  authority. 
Twice  it  expresses  edicts  of  the  Roman  emperor  and 
twice  the  ordinances  of  the  ceremonial  law,  which,  of 
course,  had  been  more  imperative  than  advice  or  admoni- 
tion. It  is  used  by  "  the  Seventy  "  for  the  mandates  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  the  decrees  of  Darius  and  the  laws  of 
the  Medes  and  Persians,  and  the  participle  used  with  it 
here,  and  rendered  "ordained,"  is  used  twice  in  this 
book  of  Acts  to  denote  the  authority  of  the  Jewish 
Sanhedrin,  and  by  "the  Seventy"  to  translate  the  judg- 
ment of  the  Persian  council  in  degi'ading  Queen  Vashti 
from  royal  elevation.  No  words  of  any  language, 
probably,  have  ever  been  more  uniformly  employed  to 
express  command  by  competent  authority  or  injunction 
by  legitimate  supremacy  in  Church  or  Stale. 

The  provisional  nature  of  the  decision  does  not  by 
any  means  abate  the  stringency  of  its  behest,  but  rather 
enforces  it.  There  was  an  exigence  to  be  met  every- 
where in  its  promulgation.  As  the  virulence  of  a 
spreading  distemper  must  be  met  by  the  instant  cogniz- 
ance and  utmost  exertion  of  power  in  counteraction,  so 
the   prejudice  of  expiring  Judaism   had   to  be   noticed 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  483 

and  charitably  countervailed  just  then  ;  and  the  peculiar 
"weakness  of  Gentile  morality  as  well  had  to  be  specially 
admonished  then,  and  advice  only  would  have  been  but 
straw  to  leviathan.  There  must  be  the  interposition  of 
spiritual  power  with  imperative  cogency  to  direct  the 
conscience  of  both  Jew  and  Gentile — for  a  time,  at 
least,  until  the  charity  and  piety  of  Christian  life,  rather 
than  special  and  precise  restrictions,  would  come  to  sway 
the  government  of  principles :  "  For  it  seemed  good  to 
the  Holy  Ghost,  and  to  us,  to  lay  upon  you  no  greater 
burden  than  these  necessarv  things."  Surelv  the  church- 
power  which  could  make  a  provisional  obedience  "neces- 
sary "  and  the  same  wherever  churches  were  planted  on 
the  globe  may  still  e'xist,  and  must  exert  itself  as  need 
may  be  in  the  authority  of  teaching  and  ruling,  when 
the  refinement  in  ethics  will  consist  in  the  sanction  of 
principle  more  than  in  the  enforcement  of  sumptuary  laws, 
which  seldom  lay  an  axe  to  the  root  of  an  evil  tree. 

If  it  be  objected  that  a  council  of  extraordinary  min- 
isters and  members  at  the  cradle  of  Christianity  should 
not  be  strained  as  a  model  for  succeeding  ages  and  all 
countries  in  the  progress  and  development  of  the  king- 
dom, we  may  answer  that  the  constituency  of  all  time 
in  the  Church  was  there,  and  represented  by  elders  as 
an  integral  part  of  the  assembly.  vSubtract  the  extra- 
ordinary ministers — apostles,  prophets  and  evangelists — 
and  the  Church  element  of  power  through  all  the  ages 
before  and  after  may  remain  surely  to  rule  when  the 
other  classes  shall  have  done  their  specific  work  and 
dropped  their  mantle  on  the  presbyters  in  ascending. 
As  we  have  been  at  pains  to  prove  on  the  preceding 
pages  that  the  work  of  apostles  distinctively  was  to  bear 
witness  to  Christ  of  what  they  had  seen  and  heard  of 


484  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT.     • 

him  in  personal  intercourse,  and  that  supplementary  to 
such  testimony  was  a  ministry  of  gifts  to  give  it  force 
and  promulgation,  and  that  the  power  of  polity  they 
had  consisted  mainly  in  identifying  the  elders  of  the 
future  with  the  elders  of  the  past  and  making  the  whole 
machinery  of  synagogues  Christian,  by  simply  introdu- 
cing the  Christian  word  and  sacraments  wherever  a  syn- 
agogue could  be,  converted  in  whole  or  in  part,  so  this 
eldership  stands  perpetually,  and  inherits  all  the  prom- 
ises made  in  the  covenant  of  old  pertaining  to  the  ful- 
ness of  time,  and  all  the  prerogatives  and  immunities 
bestowed  on  the  body  of  Christ  by  his  own  eternal  Spirit 
as  the  Spirit  of  truth,  holiness  and  power. 

Such  a  council  was  evidently  justified  in  using  the 
Greek  formula  of  expression  for  sovereign  authority 
and  binding  force:  "  It  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost 
and  to  us."  This  verb  {doxeio)  is  the  common  term  for 
autocratic  determination  among  the  Greeks.  Demosthe- 
nes used  it  in  expressing  the  supreme  authority  of  the 
Senate,  and  Plato  in  describing  the  inexorable  certainty 
of  death.  It  was  used  familiarly  by  Josephus  and  others 
to  express  the  decretive  power  of  the  Jewish  Sanhe- 
drin,  opposition  to  which  was  punished  by  death  :  wdiat 
"  seemed  good  to  them."  But  the  objector  will  say  that 
here  it  is  the  supreme  authority  of  the  Holy  Ghost 
which  prompted  those  decrees  and  constrained  with 
miraculous  guidance  the  decision  to  be  promulged.  That 
the  result  of  this  deliberation  was  not  by  supernatural 
afflatus  of  the  Spirit,  but  by  that  ordinary  teaching  and 
leading  of  his  people  in  every  age  representing  the  pres- 
ence of  Christ  in  every  assembly,  either  for  worship  or 
for  government,  without  which  there  is  neither  clear 
deliberation,  sound  judgment,  acceptable    worship    nor 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  485 

effective  government,  must  be  evident  by  the  following 
considerations. 

(1)  The  human  element  is  blended  here  with  the 
divine :  "  It  seemed  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost  and  to 
us."  When  it  was  otherwise  expressed  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, as  "  holy  men  of  old  spake  as  they  were  moved 
by  the  Holy  Ghost,"  it  was  "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,"  and 
"Thus  say  we"  was  never  added.  We  are  only  and 
altogether  passive  when  his  energizing  power  comes 
upon  us  with  supernatural  dictation  ;  and  even  when  it 
seems  good  to  us  in  co-operating  with  him  in  the  build- 
ing, it  is  "  Not  by  might,  nor  by  power,  but  by  my  Spirit, 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts."  Every  decision  ecclesiastical, 
by  ministers  and  elders,  till  the  end  of  time,  which  is 
agreeable  to  the  word  of  God  and  in  harmony  with  the 
exigence  and  season  of  his  good  providence,  may  record 
the  same  thing  as  "  good  to  the  Holy  Ghost  and  to  us." 

(2)  There  was  no  need  for  that  reference  and  journey 
and  large  repi-esentation  assembled  at  Jerusalem  to  de- 
liberate on  the  question  if  it  were  not  human  with  divine 
upon  the  record;  for  the  decree  of  Paul  himself  at 
Antioch — who  subsequently  said,  "So  ordain  I  in  all 
the  churches " — would  have  been  as  good  as  the  whole 
twelve  at  Jerusalem  in  declarins;  the  mind  of  Christ, 
if  the  immediate  afflatus  of  the  Holy  Ghost  were  alone 
the  organ  of  that  result,  a  "necessary  burden"  imposed 
on  all  the  churches. 

(3)  The  fact  recorded  of  "  much  disputing  "  in  the 
council  before  the  decision  was  made  evinces  the  rational 
exercise  of  man's  own  faculties  of  speech  and  logic  under 
the  gracious  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  now,  and  in 
every  age  of  proper  ecclesiastical  assemblies ;  for  a  super- 
natural dictation  of  the  Spirit,  without  any  concurrence 


486  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

of  our  own  rational  judgments,  would  preclude  dubiety 
and  all  disputation. 

(4)  The  nature  of  the  decision  itself  was  compromise, 
which  is  always  human,  the  natural  exercise  of  common 
sense  and  Christian  charity,  and  means  the  imperfection 
of  man's  judgment  on  one  or  both  sides  of  a  controversy. 
Between  Jew  and  Gentile — the  legal  James  and  the 
liberal  Paul — the  fallible  Peter  makes  the  deciding 
speech  and  suggests  the  sentence  which  James  pro- 
nounced in  formula.  Provisional  expediency  is  not 
supernatural  and  needs  no  special  afflatus  of  inspiration 
from  on  high.  The  right  motives  and  the  warrantable 
end  are  of  God,  as  he  inspires  the  one  and  guides  the 
other,  but  the  precise  adjustment  is  left  to  human  reason 
as  enlightened  by  the  gospel.  The  inveterate  prejudice 
of  Jews  and  the  licentious  impurity  of  Gentiles  must 
both  be  held  in  as  with  a  bridle  when  the  brotherhood 
of  man  is  dawning  and  the  'Orb  of  universality  for  the 
gospel  is  rising.  Things  indifferent  in  themselves,  meats 
offered  to  idols,  things  strangled  and  blood  must  be  ab- 
stained from  with  Christian  charity,  which  ordinarily 
concedes  something  to  the  weakness  of  superstition  for 
a  time;  and  things  of  gross  immorality,  as  fornication, 
must  be  instantly  restrained  and  mortified  until  the  law 
of  life  in  Christianity  shall  have  diffused  the  holiness  of 
Christian  principle,  uprooting  such  abomination  for  ever. 
This  burden  of  charity  and  self-denial  the  Gentile  con- 
verts would  gladly  accept,  instead  of  the  ceremonial  yoke 
of  Moses,  for  a  help  to  salvation  ;  and  this  external  con- 
formity and  actual  forbearance  the  Jewish  converts  would 
gladly  accept  as  better  homage  to  their  civilization  than 
any  forced  submission  to  a  yoke  which  neither  they  nor 
their  fathers  were  able  to  bear.     All  this  arrangement 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  487 

was  made  by  the  competency  of  human  reason  enlight- 
ened by  the  Holy  Ghost  and  propelled  by  those  gracious 
influences  which  he  continues  to  shed  upon  *'  a  represen- 
tation of  all  the  churches  "  through  all  the  ages,  in  which 
"  the  word  of  God  is  not  bound,"  and  in  which  prayer 
is  made  continually  for  the  presence  of  Christ  in  the 
midst  of  assemblies  convoked  by  his  authority. 

Such,  we  think,  is  a  fair  analysis  of  that  primeval 
assembly  which  the  Presbyterian  Church  has  copied 
with  so  much  uniformity  as  the  model  of  gradation 
for  judicatories  now  and  the  essential  supremacy  of 
representation  at  the  highest  ascent  of  church-power 
on  earth.  A  question  of  great  importance  which  could 
not  be  settled  at  Antioch,  where  a  perfect  organization  of 
Presbytery  existed,  though  comparatively  small  in  juris- 
diction, is  voted  and  sent  as  a  reference  to  another  as- 
sembly, of  higher  authority,  because  of  larger  represen- 
tation— *'  the  whole  Church."  Tiiere  the  question  was 
accepted  and  amply  discussed,  where  debate  would  have 
been  precluded  altogether  if  the  decision  had  waited  only 
on  a  supernal  fiat  of  the  Holy  Ghost  instead  of  the  ex- 
haustive parlance  of  his  ministers,  whom  he  supplied 
with  wisdom  on  that  occasion,  as  he  does  on  every 
occasion,  of  assemblage  and  prayer  in  the  name  of 
Christ.  The  decision  itself  was  approximate  and  ]iro- 
visional,  a  measure  of  expediency,  a  pastoral  of  concilia- 
tion, in  which  the  twin  graces  of  charity  and  self-denial 
were  to  usher  the  unity  of  Christendom  before  imperial 
persecution  would  come  to  lay  it  waste.  Yet  this  tenta- 
tive rather  than  radical  deliverance  was  more  than  advice 
returned  to  the  church  at  Antioch,  which  the  latter  might 
either  accept  or  decline.  It  was  imperative — a  decree  of 
binding  obligation,  a  necessary  burden  for  all  the  churches 


488  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

to  bear  along  with  Antioch.  The  strongest  words  of 
sovereignty  in  the  exercise  of  power,  and  the  signet 
of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  the  Spirit  of  "  power  and  of  a 
sound  mind/'  prohibited  the  disobedience.  Here  was 
the  development  of  a  central  force  of  life  iu  the  whole 
Church,  and  not  merely  the  flow  of  sympathy  among 
its  accretions.  The  body  of  Christ,  "fitly  joined  to- 
gether and  compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  sup- 
plieth,"  lifted  up  once  for  all  its  ecumenical  aspect  for 
the  issuance  of  a  provisional  decree  to  quiet  a  local  dis- 
putation and  order  away  the  rubbish  of  that  broken 
"  middle  wall  of  partition  "  which  Christ's  incarnation 
came  to  remove. 

And  if  expediency  for  the  time  could  issue  thus  from 
the  whole  Church  with  plenary  sanction  of  law  to  bind 
all  the  churches,  h-ow  much  more  must  the  formulation 
of  eternal  truth  in  true  definitions  and  right  applications 
bind  the  respect  and  a])proval  of  the  churches  represented 
in  the  highest  assembly  of  any  denomination  that  is 
Christian  !  And  how  much  more  secure  must  be  the 
rights  of  individual  members  when  the  same  high  court 
is  appellate  in  the  review  of  discipline  and  correction  of 
disorders  below  !  The  oracle  of  that  inspired  record  on 
which  we  have  commented  is  indeed  a  "lively"  one  to 
the  end  of  the  world,  and  its  forceful  import  is  already 
telling  on  prelacy  itself.  Centuries  have  passed  with 
episcopal  domination  excluding  a  representation  of  the 
people  from  council  with  the  bishops  in  their  conclave. 
Now,  it  is  found  that  "  the  Church  of  the  future," 
as  well  as  tlie  long  past,  cannot  gather  and  tax  the 
people  without  representation,  and  that  as  a  component 
of  the  innermost  and  uppermost  councils  no  less  than 
benches  at  the  gate  or  in  the  outer  courts  of  the  temple. 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  489 

It  is  well  to  have  the  necessity  of  an  appellate  judicatory 
of  any  sort  conceded,  but  the  problem  of  its  construction 
with  the  sacerdotal  caste  of  orders  resting  on  tradition 
without  suffrage  of  the  people  must  be  a  difficult  one 
wherever  the  right  of  private  judgment  is  not  over- 
laid. 

This  argument  for  a  system  of  judicial  administration 
in  the  Church  might  be  greatly  extended.  The  analogies 
of  good  government  among  men  are  ever  at  hand  to  help 
us  with  proof  and  illustration.  Disintegration  is  anarchy 
wherever  there  is  higher  unity  of  power  to  claim  a  com- 
mon jurisdiction  ;  and  when  Christ  himself  is  the  one 
supremacy,  and  he  prays  and  works  by  his  Spirit  to 
have  all  the  bodies  of  men  throughout  his  kingdom 
exchange  their  independence  for  his  law,  their  local 
autonomy  for  his  universal  code,  their  detached  affinities 
and  separate  sympathies  and  accidental  proportions  for 
his  embodiment  of  all  in  the  representation  of  all  on 
matters  of  truth  and  right  and  righteousness, — we  can- 
not refuse  to  work  with  him  in  judicatories  rather  than 
in  conventions,  decisions  which  remain  to  bind  us  rather 
than  in  resolutions  which  vanish  into  thin  air. 

Congregationalism  in  Connecticut  appreciated  in  good 
measure  the  underlying  principles  of  such  a  system  when 
it  organized  that  Consociation  of  churches  which  has 
largely  warded  off  the  defections  of  creed  occurring  in 
Massachusetts,  and  recognized  a  Presbyterian  motto  with 
an  imperfect  reproduction  of  our  system  :  "  Quod  tangit 
omnes,  debet  ab  omnikis  tractari  ("  What  affects  all  should 
be  managed  by  all  ").  We  may  range  about  this  vantage- 
ground  the  many  formulas  of  God's  own  word  by  the  lips 
and  pens  of  inspired  apostles  :  "  We  being  many  are  one 
bread  and  one  body ;"  "There  should  be  no  schism  in  the 


490  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

body ;  but  that  the  members  should  have  the  same  care 
one  for  another.  And  whether  one  member  suffer,  all 
the  members  suffer  with  it ;  or  one  member  be  honored, 
all  the  members  rejoice  with  it."  These  expressions, 
and  others  like  them,  certainly  denote  organization  in 
which  mutual  rights  and  mutual  sympathies  do  circulate 
as  blood  in  the  veins  and  arteries  of  a  living  body,  dis- 
tributing the  blessedness  of  communion  with  perfect  in- 
timacy to  the  inmost  issues  of  ransomed  nature,  and  not 
by  way  of  contact  on  the  outward  surfaces  of  like  but 
different  bodies,  congeries  and  contagion  rather  than 
development  of  one  heart  in  the  pulsations  of  Christian 
sympathy.  After  the  enclosure  of  one  particular  church 
is  completed  its  relation  to  another  of  like  nature  is  out- 
side, and  only  another  consideration,  as  an  after-thought, 
in  the  scheme  of  Independency ;  whereas  in  Presbytery 
the  relation  of  one  church  to  another  is  innate  and  born 
at  the  inception  of  either,  and  all  addition  or  extension 
of  number  is  growth  more  than  count,  according  to  the 
Scriptures.  "  Fulness  "  begins  addition  here.  "  Who 
is  offended  and  I  burn  not?"  exclaimed  the  apostle 
Paul  when  he  said,  "  The  care  of  all  the  churches 
Gometh  upon  me  daily."  Total  instead  of  local  sym- 
pathy, a  field  of  church-planting  wide  as  the  world 
instead  of  the  vicinage  or  providence  which  bounds 
the  radiation  of  any  particular  church  in  isolation, 
would  seem  to  be  in  the  mind  of  this  great  apostle 
as  a  characteristic  of  "  the  whole  Cluirch,"  a  "  body 
fitly  joined  together,"  so  as  to  make  increase  of  the 
body  to  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love.  Hence  the 
soundness  of  the  whole  body  is  the  main  curative 
agency  for  the  healing  of  partial  distempers  in  any 
of  the  parts  or  members.     This  great  analogy  of  medi- 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  491 

cal  jurisprudence,  more  and  more  evinced  in  scientific 
progress,  may  surely  avail  us  in  application  to  the  body 
of  Christ,  where  all  the  members  are  "  compacted  by  that 
which  every  joint  supplieth,"  and  derive  their  life  and 
health  from  a  common  head  by  living  ligaments,  which 
make  articulations,  instead  of  by  the  mere  juxtaposition 
that  helps  by  accident  or  mechanical  device. 

In  correlation  with  this  gift  of  healing  with  which 
Presbvtery  is  endowed  is  the  exercise  of  rio-ht  also. 
As  in  a  living  body  "the  eye  cannot  say  unto  the  hand, 
I  have  no  need  of  thee :  nor  again  the  head  to  the  feet,  I 
have  no  need  of  you,"  so  these  "more  feeble"  members 
necessarily  acquire  a  claim  for  direction  from  the  eye  and 
animation  from  the  head  in  the  motions  of  life.  The  ex- 
tinction of  an  eye  or  a  blow  upon  the  head,  therefore, 
must  be  damage  and  wrong  done  to  these  inferior  mem- 
bers and  their  actuated  obedience.  In  plainer  words,  no 
particular  church  in  this  body  of  Christ  has  a  right  to 
deny  the  divinity  of  Christ  and  so  leave  all  the  other 
members  of  his  body  without  an  adequate  Head,  and 
consequently  injured  in  the  derivation  of  influence  and 
vitality,  grace  for  grace,  until  we  are  made  complete  in 
Jesus.  Hence  the  authority  of  discipline  arises  in  gov- 
ernmental forms  for  the  repression  and  restraint  of  per- 
nicious evil.  And  even  the  law  of  nations  may  control 
the  world  by  the  analogy  of  this  principle  borrowed  from 
the  law  of  Christ.  No  multiplication  of  small  democra- 
cies without  the  unity  of  system  and  central  power  in  a 
great  republic  could  have  proclaimed  in  the  morning  of 
this  century  that  no  despotism  of  the  Transatlantic  world 
shall  henceforth  plant  its  foot  among  our  neighbors  on 
the  continent  we  inhabit.  These  neighbors  have  no 
right  to  do  as  they  please  in   the   premises   when  the 


492  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

safety  of  one  nation  is  at  stake  in  the  destiny  of  another 
beside  it.  The  mission  we  have  from  the  God  of  nature 
and  humanity  to  fulfil  as  a  nation  could  endure  no  con- 
terminous propagandism  at  war  with  its  own  cherished 
principles. 

In  like  manner,  no  single  church  or  association  of 
churches  should  be  let  alone  to  disseminate  contagious 
error  on  the  borders  of  general  soundness  in  the  faith, 
and  only  that  constructure  of  the  Church  in  a  system 
which  brings  the  sanity  of  a  whole  body  to  bear  upon 
the  disease  or  defection  of  any  particular  part  is  com- 
petent to  save  the  whole  body  from  corruption  and 
apostasy.  Withdrawal  of  fellowship  is  not  enough  of 
sanction  for  moral  condemnation.  Althouo^h  it  mav 
seem  virtually  the  same,  in  effect,  as  the  censure  even 
to  excision  "  inflicted  by  many,"  it  lacks  the  force  of  a 
positive  and  formal  sentence  by  constituted  authority, 
so  essential  to  the  ordinance  of  judicial  discipline. 
Wherever  the  rulers  and  the  ruled  are  identical  in 
authority,  and  those  "  who  are  over  them  in  the  Lord  " 
are  actually  under  the  people  in  the  ratification  of  every- 
thing proposed  by  the  officers,  there  can  be  no  conclusive 
government  or  adjudication. 

When  our  Congregational  brethren  move  to  arrest  the 
propagation  of  Socinian  heresy  or  another  probation  for 
the  heathen  after  death,  and  every  method  of  counter- 
vailing effort  by  discussion  and  review  has  failed  to  stop 
the  mischief  and  reconcile  opinions,  their  last  resort  is  the 
first  resort  of  Presbyterianism,  in  such  cases — a  council 
composed  of  representation  from  various  and  many  par- 
ticular congregations.  Yet  no  decision  according  to  the 
fundamental  tenets  of  church  polity  in  that  denomina- 
tion can  be  made  by  the  council  more  conclusive  than 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  493 

the  persuasion  attempted  before  it  was  convoked  at 
all.  It  is  only  advice — made  more  impressive,  indeed, 
by  the  force  of  majorities  voting — but  no  definitive 
decree  to  bind  the  conscience  of  parties  concerned  in 
the  debate  beforehand,  like  that  necessary  burden  laid 
on  all  the  churches  by  the  council  at  Jerusalem.  And 
it  is  not  even  accepted  advice  until  it  is  ratified  in  detail 
by  eacl\  congregation  apart,  and  perhaps  incorporated  in 
the  covenant  and  creed  of  the  people  themselves  in  each 
particular  charge.  "  Progressive  orthodoxy "  in  this 
way  of  bootless  agitation,  fluctuating  change  and  in- 
determinate conclusion  must  be,  in  the  long  run,  a 
memorial  of  dissipated  strength  in  the  kingdom  of 
our  Lord. 

So  near  akin  is  Congregationalism  to  us  in  the  liberty 
and  right  of  private  judgment,  and  in  the  traditions  of  a 
second  Reformation  at  Westminster,  and  the  intertwined 
activities  of  reliaion  which  laid  here  the  foundations 
of  a  republic  in  civil  government,  we  "suffer"  with 
such  a  sister,  and  deplore  the  waste  of  learning  and 
piety  in  such  economy  at  our  side,  through  fear  of  a 
phantom,  which,  in  the  eyes  of  Congregational  Inde- 
pendency, ever  shadows  the  progress  of  Presbyterian 
church  government.  This  phantom  is  the  spiritual 
despotism  they  see  in  conciliary  dogmas  of  decision, 
enforced  without  being  first  accepted,  as  if  no  tyranny 
were  to  be  met  in  the  doings  of  a  popular  mass  in 
excited  congregation  which  is  responsible  to  no  jiara- 
mount  authoritv  over  its  transactions,  and  in  wiiicli 
there  can  be  no  ruling  but  proposal  for  the  deliberation 
and  enactment  of  the  people  tliemselves.  Escape  from 
the  tyranny  of  a  majority  in  one  congregation  has  no 
refuge  provided  in  which  local  majorities  are  held  re- 


494  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

sponsible;  and  spiritual  anarchy  is  encountered  in  that 
spontaneous  arbitration  outside  wliich  would  redress  the 
grievance  done  by  inside  independence.  How  much  less 
perilous  to  liberty  and  right  is  the  gradation  of  consti- 
tuted courts  in  our  system,  through  which  the  injured  or 
aggrieved  may  prosecute  their  cause  with  better  hope  at 
every  step  of  the  complaint  or  appeal  that  a  higher 
tribunal,  more  enlarged  in  representation  and  remote 
from  the  local  influence  which  had  prejudiced  the  right, 
will  eventually  honor  truth  and  justice  with  an  adequate 
vindication  ! 

The  comparison  made  in  England  over  two  centuries' 
ago  between  Presbytery  and  Independency,  when  the 
latter  was  advocated  by  able  and  godly  men  com- 
peting for  the  ascendancy  of  their  system,  both  by 
debate  in  the  Assembly  of  Divines  at  Westminster  and 
by  the  countenance  of  Oliver  Cromwell  at  the  head  of 
the  Commonwealth,  may  reveal  to  us  the  steadiness  of 
the  one  and  the  changeableness  of  the  other  as  we  come 
down  to  the  present  day.  The  following  tabulation  was 
made  by  a  faithful  hand  about  the  time  that  discussion, 
both  in  the  Assembly  and  in  the  Parliament,  had  ex- 
hausted the  subject  and  sharply  defined  the  relative 
positions  taken  : 

Independent.  Presbyterian. 

No    other   visible   Church   of         One  visible  Church  of  Christ 

Christ  is  acknowledged,  but  only  on  earth  is  acknowledged,  and  all 

a  single  congregational   meeting  particular    churches    and    single 

in   one   place  to  partake   of  all  congregations  are  but  as  similar 

ordinances.  parts  of  that  whole. 

The  matter  of  their  visible  The  matter  of  the  Church  in- 
Church  must  be,  to  their  utmost  visible  are  only  true  believers,  but 
judgment  of  discerning,  such  as  of  the  Church  visible  persons  pro- 
have  true  grace — real  saints.  fessing  true  faith   in  Christ  and 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION. 


495 


Independent. 


Their  churches  are  gathered 
out  of  other  true  visible  churches 
of  Christ,  without  any  leave  or 
consent  of  pastor  or  flock ;  yea, 
against  their  wills,  receiving  such 
as  tender  themselves — yea,  too 
often  by  themselves  or  otliers, 
directly  or  indirectly  seducing 
disciples  after  them. 


Preaching  elders  are  only  elect- 
ed, not  ordained. 

Ruling  elders  also  preach. 

The  subject  of  church  gov- 
ernment is  the  community  of  the 
faithful. 

The  church-officers  act  imme- 
diately as  the  servants  of  the 
church,  and  deputed  thereby. 

All  censures  and  acts  of  gov- 
ernment are  dispensed  in  single 
congregations  ultimately,  inde- 
pendently, without  all  liberty  of 
appeal  from  them  to  any  superior 
church  assembly;  so  the  parties 
grieved  are  left  without  remedy. 

There  are  acknowledged  no 
authoritative  classes  or  synods, 
in  common,  great,  difficult  cases 
and  in  matters  of  appeals,  but 
only  suasive    and    consultative; 


Presbyterian. 

obedience   to   him    according  to 
the  rules  of  the  gospel. 

Parochial  churches  are  re- 
ceived as  true  visible  churches 
of  Christ  and  most  convenient 
for  mutual  edification.  Gather- 
ing churches  out  of  churches  hath 
no  footsteps  in  Scripture,  is  con- 
trary to  apostolical  practice,  is  the 
scattering  of  churches,  the  daugh- 
ter of  schism,  the  mother  of  con- 
fusion, but  the  stepmother  to 
edification. 

Preaching  elders  are  both 
elected   and   ordained. 

Ruling  elders  only  rule,  preach 
not.  1  Tim.  v.  17, 

The  subject  of  church  govern- 
ment is  only  Christ's  own  church- 
officers. 

The  church-governors  act  im- 
mediately as  the  servants  of 
Christ,  and  as  appointed  by  him. 

All  censures  and  acts  of  gov- 
ernment are  dispensed  in  congre- 
gational Presbyteries,  subordi- 
nately,  dependently,  with  liberty 
of  appeal,  in  all  cases,  to  pres- 
byterial  or  synodal  assemblies, 
where  parties  grieved  have  suf- 
ficient remedy. 

There  are  acknowledged,  and 
with  ha[)py  success  used,  not  only 
suasive  and  consultative,  but  also 
authoritative,  Classes  and  Synods, 
in  cases  of  great  importance,  dif- 


496  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Independent.  Presbyterian. 

and  iu  case  advice  be  not  fol-  ficulty,  common  concernment  or 
lowed,  they  proceed  only  to  a  appeals,  which  have  power  to 
non-communion.  dispense  all  church  censures,  as 

need  shall  require. 

It  should  be  noticed  in  this  comparison  and  contrast — 

1.  That  both  parties,  Independents  and  Presbyterians, 
of  that  memorable  Westminster  age,  agreed  that  external 
organization  belongs  to  the  conception  of  Church,  and  all 
the  diversities  of  form  existing  in  reformed  Christianity 
could  not  neutralize  one  another  enough  to  confound 
visibility  or  eliminate  from  the  ultimate  idea  of  ecclesia 
the  setting  in  this  great  mystical  body  of  members  to  be 
seen  as  incorporated  with  Christ,  however  much  they 
diifer  in  form  or  method  working  for  the  same  con- 
summation :  "  Differences  of  administration,  but  the 
same  Lord  ;"  "  Diversities  of  operation,  but  it  is  the 
same  God  which  worketh  all  in  all."  1  Cor.  xii. 

2.  Presbyterianism  has  not  changed  during  that  time, 
nearly  two  centuries  and  a  half,  as  if  it  had  been  built 
on  a  rock  even  before  Peter  made  his  great  confession 
of  Jesus.  It  wears  to  this  day  the  churchly  form  of  all 
dispensations.  It  is  both  visible  and  invisible,  and  even 
its  visibility  is  catholic  enough  to  embrace  with  ardent 
charity  all  that  name  the  name  of  Christ  in  sincerity 
and  truth.  Not  only  do  "  similar  parts  "  of  the  whole 
enter  the  scope  of  its  unity,  but  dissimilar  parts  in  the 
visible  organization  are  embraced  as  true  churches  in  the 
scope  and  co-operation  of  its  catholicity.  Kejecting  still 
the  Anabaptist  figment  of  a  perfectly  holy  Church  to  be 
seen  in  this  world  without  any  tares  among  the  wheat,  it 
continues  to  replenish  the  visible  commuuiou  of  saints 
with  all  that  make  a  credible  profession  of  faith,  with- 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  497 

out  preteuding  to  search  the  hearts  of  men  at  the  en- 
trance with  a  certainty  of  finding  out  the  reality  of  a 
saving  change.  "Gathering  churches  out  of  churches" 
with  proselyting  aggression  has  never  been  the  fault  of 
Presbyterian  polity,  however  adventurous  her  missionary 
zeal  at  home  as  well  as  abroad.  And,  however  damaging 
within  her  own  folds  a  wild  enthusiasm  of  this  pietistic 
nature  may  have  been  for  a  while  in  the  last  century, 
the  divided  Synods  were  again  united  on  the  original 
foundations  of  saving  truth  and  "  moderation  known 
to  all  men." 

The  distinction  between  "  preaching  elders "  and 
"ruling  elders,"  though  slurred  by  many  a  jjlatitude 
of  criticism  among  ourselves  and  sharpened  to  excess 
in  shoving  out  of  rank  the  latter  and  calling  them 
delegates  and  laymen,  we  keep  with  clear  discrimina- 
tion, and  retain  them  botii  as  "  commissioners  "  in  office 
and  representation.  Perfectly  equal  in  joint  assembly  as 
judges,  and  "apt  to  teach  "  in  the  true  latitude  of  the 
original,  privately,  if  not  publicly  also,  they  are  ever 
distinguished  in  ordination  by  a  difference  in  the  power 
of  order,  the  one  class  given  wholly  to  the  administra- 
tion of  "  word  and  sacraments,"  and  the  other  partially 
an  episcopate  of  inspection  over  the  life  and  consistency 
of  membership,  without  preaching  or  living  at  the  altar 
instead  of  secular  business,  providing  things  honest  in 
the  sight  of  all  men  bv  the  work  of  their  own  hands. 
Both  these  classes  are  alike  subordinate  and  appellate, 
qualified  normally  to  rule  the  people  in  particular 
churches  and  represent  them  at  every  grade  of  judi- 
catory above,  to  which  they  may  be  specially  com- 
missioned. 

Representation  never  runs  out  as  it  ascends  in  these 


498  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

classes  of  elders  respectively  to  the  higher  and  highest 
tribunals  of  the  Church.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  become 
intensified  as  it  goes  up  in  making  higher  courts  to  be 
representative  of  lower  as  well  as  the  people  ruled,  and 
the  highest  of  all  the  most  authoritative  because  it  is 
representative  "of  all  the  churches."  Conservative 
more  than  any  other  body  in  Christendom  called 
"  Church,"  this  Presbyterian  system  stands  unchanged ; 
and  minor  eccentricities,  like  that  of  time-service,  here 
and  there  allowed  in  the  tenure  of  the  ruling  eldership, 
are  but  transitory  in  observance  and  reclaimed  at  length 
by  the  solid  consistency  of  the  whole  structure. 

3.  Independency,  on  the  other  hand,  seems  to  have 
been  changing  with  almost  every  generation.  In  its 
original  weakness  of  governmental  form  it  coalesced 
with  civil  authority  in  theocratic  evolutions  over  New 
England,  notwithstanding  the  robust  orthodoxy  of  its 
churches  that  intrinsically  protested  against  union  of 
Church  and  State,  and  especially  the  prevalence  of 
Erastian  usurpation  by  the  latter,  which  would  consign 
a  proper  discipline  within  the  Church  alone  to  civil 
municipalities  and  powers  for  executive  action.  How 
far  this  amalgamation  may  have  led  to  the  discontinu- 
ance of  ruling  elders  in  the  churches  may  not  be  known 
from  history;  but  it  is  known  at  a  glance  that  the  first 
principle  of  such  organization  would  supersede  the  use 
of  elders  to  rule,  inasmuch  as  the  people  only  rule  them- 
selves and  their  guides  conduct  the  government — if  gov- 
ernment it  can  be,  without  misnomer — by  submitting 
propositions  to  the  governed,  to  be  adopted  or  rejected 
according  to  their  own  good  pleasure. 

John  Owen,  that  mighty  theologian  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  was  an  Independent,  adhering  all  his  life- 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  499 

time  to  that  one  of  the  two  essential  tenets  whicli  will 
have  consultative  and  not  authoritative  councils  for  the 
reference  of  difficult  and  disputed  cases  of  rule  and  dis- 
cipline. His  logical  mind,  however,  could  not  approve 
the  other  first  principle  noticed  above — governing  with- 
out governors,  elders  made  servants,  the  people  of  each 
church  ruling  tiiemselves  in  their  own  way  and  making 
themselves  at  once  accusers,  witnesses  and  judges  in  all 
juridical  procedure.  Probably  the  ablest  argument  ever 
made  against  this  "confused  and  uncertain  wav,"  as 
Jonathan  Edwards  called  it,  and  in  behalf  of  ruling 
elders  for  a  bench  of  authority  and  justice  in  each  par- 
ticular church,  came  from  the  pen  of  Dr.  Owen.  Yet, 
though  sustained  and  urged  by  Dr.  Ames  of  Old  Eng- 
land, and  by  the  Mathers  and  other  great  lights  of  New 
England,  ruling  elders  were  dropped  from  the  system — 
a  great  change  for  the  worse,  though  consistent  with  its 
radical  defectiveness,  already  told. 

But  another  great  change — for  the  better,  and  not  the 
worse,  in  any  of  its  aspects — has  been  the  communion 
of  churches  with  one  another,  not  only  as  they  are  inter- 
laced in  one  system,  but  all  systems  that  are  evangeli- 
cal iu  creed  and  becoming  outline  of  constitution.  The 
original  indictment  for  making  churches  out  of  churches, 
thus  lacerating  the  body  of  Christ  to  extend  the  con- 
glomerate of  their  own  propagation,  has  been  Cfincelled. 
The  munificent  charity,  the  catholic  platform,  the  vast 
co-operation  and  the  waves  of  intelligence  which  flow 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth  attest  the  jn-ogress  of  Congre- 
gational Independency  now.  Though  all  this  be  not  a 
development  from  the  central  force  of  an  inner  life  in 
the  system  itself,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  a  problem  of 
growth  on  the  outside  which    invites  a  livelv  solution 


500  CHURCH  OOVERNMENT. 

and  shows  how  blessed  is  the  interaction  of  one  true 
Church  upon  another  in  breaking  the  crust  of  exclusive- 
ness  and  everywhere  venting  the  pent-up  sympathies  of 
sect  from  tlie  heart  of  a  common  Christianity. 

Another  betterment  in  progressive  change  is  the 
solemnity  of  ordination  to  follow  an  election  by  the 
people  of  their  pastor.  Awkwardly,  indeed,  accord- 
ing to  the  original  Brownism  of  Independency,  men 
of  the  vicinage  who  are  already  in  the  ministry  may 
come  or  not  as  they  please,  being  constrained  by  no 
command  of  a  Presbytery  to  lay  their  hands  upon  the 
head  of  one  chosen  by  the  ])eople ;  so  that  the  insepara- 
ble connection  between  popular  suffrage  and  the  recog- 
nition and  validity  thereof  in  the  solemn  though  not 
sacramental  act  of  ministers,  after  the  example  of 
apostles,  is  left  a  contingency  instead  of  an  order  ap- 
pointed by  the  due  authority.  Yet,  even  this  approxi- 
mation to  the  stand  of  all  historical  churches  must  be 
reckoned  an  advance  from  radicalism  to  the  catholic 
sympathies  which  more  and  more  unite  conformities  in 
the  visible  Church. 

The  principle  attained  in  submitting  the  electoral  vote 
of  a  people  to  the  sanction  of  ministers  in  the  neighbor- 
hood by  the  laying  on  of  their  hands  in  ordination  has 
led  Congregational  Independency  more  and  more  to 
confide  in  councils  and  look  beyond  its  primitive  paling 
to  more  general  assemblies  met  in  the  name  of  Jesus 
Christ  to  formulate  the  expression  of  truth  and  right 
on  questions  of  difficult  solution  and  distracting  dif- 
ference of  opinion  among  the  churches.  But  the  specific 
value  of  conciliary  declaration  is  lost  when  it  is  not  dis- 
cerned and  received  as  authoritative  beyond  the  personal 
respectability    of  selected    counsellors.     Everything    in 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  501 

true  Christianity  must  be  more  or  less  a  thing  of 
authority,  like  the  teaching  of  its  Founder,  else  the 
moral  arbitration  which  settles  a  dispute  and  composes 
peace,  wanting  this  royal  stamp,  is  no  "  necessary  bur- 
den" nor  binding  obligation  upon  any  of  the  churches, 
and  the  subsequent  agitation — quieted,  perhaps,  for  a 
time  on  the  surface — becomes  deeper  and  wider  like 
waves  of  the  sea  in  proportion  to  such  ventilation.  As 
among  the  surges  of  Gennesaret  there  was  no  subsidence 
or  safety  until  the  voice  of  divine  authority  said,  "  Peace, 
be  still,"  so  in  the  deep  sea  of  public  opinion,  where  men 
float  uncertainly  and  grapple  for  some  anchor  that  is  sure, 
only  the  deliverance  which  comes  with  such  authority 
can  allay  disturbances  and  prevent  the  tossing  of  idle 
and  endless  debate.  When  it  is  objected  that  "  councils 
may  err"  and  arrogate  authority  which  only  counterfeits 
the  divine,  we  answer  that  any  other  ordinance  of  God, 
as  administered  by  fallible  men,  is  liable  to  similar  abuse 
and  mistake,  and  we  are  justified  in  ignoring  all  authority 
in  preaching  the  word  because  the  preacher  may  err  in 
the  interpretation  of  his  text.  Authority  does  exist  in* 
councils  which  represent  fairly  the  churches,  and  only 
the  conscience  that  obeys  God  rather  than  man  is 
authorized  to  make  the  exceptions  which  cannot  fairly 
be  made  without  adopting  the  rule. 

And  that  there  is  rule  to  be  recognized  in  councils 
legitimately  called  is  now  more  than  ever  tacitly  con- 
ceded by  Congregational  Independency.  For  why  did 
the  memorable  debate  in  the  meeting  of  the  American 
Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Missions  at  Des 
Moines,  Iowa,  over  the  Andover  departure  in  respect 
to  a  future  probation  after  death  held  for  the  heathen, 
subside  in  conciliation  and  good-will  on  the  proposition 


502  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

submitted  to  take  from  the  prudential  committee  the 
prerogative  of  judging  the  theology  of  candidates  for 
the  foreign  field  and  commit  this  judgment  to  a  theo- 
logical council — whatever  that  may  mean — if  there  had 
been  no  tacit  expectation  of  a  final  settlement  as  author- 
ized in  such  a  quarter  ?  It  would  be  only  shifting  the  dis- 
pute from  one  arena  to  another  interminably  if  the  coun- 
cil designed  wa§  to  be  no  more  than  a  "  consultative " 
synod,  which  can  be  nothing  but  advisory  in  its  conclu- 
sions. It  is  admitted  that  even  authoritative  assemblies 
of  representative  men  might  not  be  able  to  conclude  a 
peace  in  such  an  agitation,  but  they  could  save  their 
Board  of  Missions  from  the  dilemma  of  running  without 
motive  or  losing  support  at  home  by  the  decision  of  coun- 
cil as  a  Presbytery  in  the  premises  to  break  the  bone  of 
contention  by  repudiating  the  speculation  of  error  in  can- 
didates and  disowning  the  corporations  which  promulge 
the  same.  It  may  be  admitted,  also,  that  the  decision 
of  any  human  council  inferentially  derived  from  an 
^honest  interpretation  of  Scripture  is  dogma,  and  not 
doctrine  positively  revealed,  and  therefore  of  less  obliga- 
tion devolving  than  the  Confession  of  Faith  adopted. 
But  the  measure  of  its  authority  is  to  end  controversy 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Church  whose  representation  pro- 
nounces and  promulgates  the  decree.  It  may  even  split 
the  visibility  of  a  Church  and  occasion  a  secession,  but 
this  evil  is  assuredly  less  than  a  continuance  of  conflict 
within,  which  never  ends  without  a  disruption  at  length 
that  may  sever  unity  with  bitter  alienation  and  multiply 
the  fragments  of  a  system  which  is  already  weakened  by 
too  much  disintegration. 

Yet  another  year  goes  by,  and  the  scheme  of  con- 
ciliar  advice,  by  general  consent  of  the  "corporators," 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  503 

cannot  be  adopted  because  it  is  inorganic  in  the  nature 
of  their  system  :  it  makes  no  organic  connection  of"  the 
Board  with  the  churches,  beiug  simply  a  representation 
without  authority.  And  thus  that  noble  American 
Board — a  corporation  of  civil  authority,  and  not  the 
Church — must  go  on  to  wield  the  right  arm  of  all 
true  churches  in  sending  the  gospel  abroad  by  the  force 
of  a  civil  charter  mingling  its  form  with  the  great  com- 
mission of  our  exalted  Saviour,  and  virtually  making 
new  and  continuous  the  old  theocracy  of  New  England 
— Church  and  State  united,  whose  "  corporators  "  manage 
a  Christian  trust  without  formal  deference  to  church  au- 
thority expressed  organically. 

The  conclusion  we  reach  now  respecting  Independ- 
ency in  the  present  form  of  Congregationalism  is  that 
the  two  most  radical  defects  on  the  score  of  Church 
government,  transmitted  from  the  Brownism  in  which  it 
began,  remain  essentially  unchanged  and  practically  make 
no  government  at  all,  properly  speaking,  in  either  a 
sacred  or  a  civil  sense.  These  are,  first,  small  com- 
munities visibly  separated  from  all  other  churches,  even 
those  called  by  their  own  name,  in  each  of  which  the 
officers  set  over  them  are  servants,  and  not  rulers  at  all 
except  in  the  sense  that  they  are  part  of  the  people  com- 
posing the  membership,  and  voting  in  common  with 
others  over  whom  they  are  invested  with  an  oversight 
which  is  allowed  to  have  no  function  of  authority,  but 
merely  the  lead  in  pro])osing  measures  for  the  congrega- 
tion to  enact,  and  formally  declaring  the  result  thereon 
of  membership  suffrage  into  which  the  official  has  been 
merged.  Even  if  it  be  "  regenerate  membership  "  truly 
in  possessing  "  the  spirit  of  power  and  of  love  and  of  a 
sound   mind,"  it  cannot   possess  a  warrant    for   setting 


504  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

aside  the  iustruments  or  symbols  of  authority  over 
them  which  God  has  appointed  in  his  word.  Secondly, 
there  is  no  appeal  permitted  from  the  popular  decision 
made  in  this  way,  however  much  it  may  be  made  in  a 
corner,  in  prejudice  or  passion,  ignorance  or  mistake,  to 
which  regenerate  nature  is  liable  in  this  life.  There  is 
no  tribunal  above  this  one  small  congregation  to  which 
it  is  amenable  for  the  slur  of  doctrine,  travesty  of  prac- 
tice or  injustice  done  to  innocent  offenders.  A  lateral 
assembly  of  officers  and  lay  delegates  may  or  may  not 
be  invited  to  meet  and  consider,  but  never  to  review  and 
control,  the  proceedings  of  an  independent  court,  except 
to  consult  on  propositions  abstracted  from  actual  process. 
And  yet  the  wisest  and  best  conclusions  attained  by  the 
council  are  only  counsel  which  may  or  may  not  be 
accepted  by  the  parties  concerned.  Society  constituted 
in  this  way  is  not  government  with  adequate  shape  for 
any  one  of  its  branches,  legislative,  executive  or  judicial. 
Churches  constituted  in  this  way  are  not  catholic,  how- 
ever true  and  pure  they  may  be  respectively,  for  all  his- 
torical catholicity  means  that  office-bearers  must  be  rulers, 
called  such  in  Scripture  by  every  name  that  denotes  rul- 
ing authority,  and  the  people  choosing  them  must  be 
ruled,  of  course,  thereby,  and  that  authority  in  ruling 
any  particular  church,  however  diminutive,  must  be 
graduated  in  ascending  degrees  of  responsibility  for 
truth  and  right  until  a  visible  supremacy  is  reached  in 
a  general  representation  of  all  the  churches  composed 
of  the  old  ruling  constituency  in  the  generic  sense  of 
elders. 

Teaching  and  ruling  are  distinguished  from  each  other 
by  an  obvious  variety  of  meaning,  but  are  absolutely  in- 
separable in  the  commission  of  our  Lord  to  evangelize 


JUDICATORIES  IN  GRADATION.  505 

the  world.  DiscipHug  men  is  ruling  them  to  some 
extent,  unquestionably.  An  official  warrant  of  power 
is  in  the  very  nature  of  preaching,  and  coextensive, 
therefore,  with  its  universality.  The  preacher  to  one 
particular  church  is  just  the  same  to  a  score  of  churches 
besides  on  occasion,  and  to  a  general  assembly  of  churches 
represented  on  another  occasion,  and  world-wide  as 
preachiug  is  the  intrinsic  authority  of  it  must  be. 
And  who  will  say  that  authoritative  application  of 
the  word  preached  must  be  shut  up  witiiin  the  pale 
of  one  particular  fold  after  another,  and  that  too  in 
the  way  of  serving,  without  commanding,  also,  the 
consciences  to  which  it  is  sent  ? 

If,  then,  the  plural  of  church,  and  not  the  singular 
only,  is  the  legitimate  field  of  teaching  elders,  it  is  of 
ruling  elders  also  in  eligible  representation,  and  the 
association  of  these  together  will  represent  a  district  as 
well  as  a  locality,  and  jointly  govern  as  well  as  teach  all 
they  represent  in  the  collective  exercise  of  these  functions. 
Such  a  body  is  what  we  call  a  *'  Presbytery."  The 
i'egime  of  one  locality  so  conducted  with  similar  combi- 
nation of  these  distinct  yet  inseparable  elements  of 
power  we  call  a  "Session,"  though  called  also,  and 
perhaps  with  more  propriety,  a  "  Consistory,"  in  which 
alone,  through  the  whole  gradation  of  courts,  the  rulers 
outnumber  the  teachers,  giving  to  the  people  who  choose 
them  to  office  the  utmost  advantage  of  representative 
wisdom  and  power  in  the  first  and  most  familiar  council 
that  can  be  had  in  the  visible  Church.  How  far  the 
levels  may  ascend  of  higher  and  appellate  judicatories 
in  the  system  is  to  be  determined  by  convenience  and 
exj)ediency  according  to  the  extent  of  space  and  number 
of  particular   churches   and  circumstances   of  country, 


506  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

language  and  tradition.  No  grade  of  representation 
ever  becomes  too  high  or  too  remote  for  the  review 
and  protection  of  any  member,  however  humble  and 
private. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 

CONSTITUTIONAL  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL 

ASSEMBLY. 

THE  relation  of  one  judicatory  to  another  in  our  sys- 
tem of  graduated  authority  is  precisely  and  well  ex- 
plained by  the  "  Form  of  Government,"  which  delineates 
the  Presbyterian  organization,  and  to  which  the  student 
is  referred.  It  is  part  of  our  constitution  which  must 
be  formally  approved  in  order  to  exercise  a  miuistry 
among  our  people,  aud,  beyond  this  necessity,  it  claims 
a  searching  scrutiny  as  a  compact  and  logical  structure 
which  implies  more  than  it  expresses  in  the  principles 
that  underlie  its  distribution  of  power  among  the  assem- 
blies. Sessional,  Presbyterial,  Synodical  and  General.  It 
has  been  often  debated  which  is  the  primary  court  in  the 
system  we  approve,  and,  inasmuch  as  the  Synod  is  de- 
fined "  a  larger  Presbytery,"  the  dispute  is  narrowed  to 
three — the  Session,  the  Presbytery  and  the  General  As- 
sembly. In  attempting  this  problem  we  are  not  to  be 
led  by  the  analogies  of  civil  government  with  which  we 
are  conversant,  and  which  are  in  many  features  the  same 
as  our  church  government,  for  these  are  fundamentally 
different  in  the  rise  and  progress  of  their  institution. 
As  already  observed,  the  State  comes  from  multiplicity 
in  its  human  constituents,  but  the  Church  from  unity, 
the  fulness  of  her  Head  in  heaven.  She  is  the  body  of 
Christ  in  a  mystical  though  actual  sense. 

507 


508  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

1.  That  judicatory  of  the  Church  must  be  first  as  well 
as  last  to  be  distinguished  which  is  next  and  nearest  the 
Head  in  the  scope  of  its  oversight  and  the  assemblage 
of  gifts  and  graces,  to  the  utmost  variety,  that  makes 
the  Church  what  she  is.  The  accepted  definition  of  tlie 
General  Assembly  as  a  "  representation  of  all  the 
churches "  in  this  denomination  obviously  determines 
that  this  high  court  is  the  primary  one  in  our  system. 
Whether  this  word  "  primary  "  be  taken  in  the  sense  of 
time  or  importance,  it  is  decidedly  the  character  of  our 
General  Assembly.  No  matter  about  the  name.  It  was 
called  "  Presbytery  "  in  1707  ;  "Synod  "  in  1717 ;  "  Gen- 
eral Assembly"  in  1789;  but  in  all  this  progression  it 
was  the  same  in  general  representation  for  the  time,  and 
only  comparative  expansion  altered  the  designation,  and 
higher  ascent  of  appeal  and  review  the  degree  of  power. 
As  the  number  of  members  increased  the  visible  body 
of  Christ  was  enlarged  in  growth,  and,  as  every  church 
in  particular  and  every  member  individually  in  his  own 
place  and  adjustment  shared  the  power  of  Christ  in  special 
modification  as  a  gift,  the  total  distribution  from  on  high 
represented  the  Head  liimself  more  and  more  completely; 
and  as  the  General  Assembly  at  once  represents  the  Head 
of  grace  and  power  most  completely,  and  the  aggregate 
of  professing  believers  most  entirely,  it  should  be  con- 
sidered the  primary  court  alike  in  time  and  dignity  and 
elementary  tuition. 

2.  The  complete  ideal  of  any  body  or  thing  is  first  in 
the  mind  of  an  observer  in  order  to  comprehend  aright 
the  division  and  subdivision  of  parts  and  the  relative 
position  and  value  of  these.  We  are  to  study  the  out- 
line before  we  can  perceive  the  right  direction  and  situa- 
tion of  what  is  folded  within.     We  are  to  study  the 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    509 

meaning  and  force  of  general  before  we  can  adequately 
know  the  bearing  and  use  of  partial  representation.  So 
we  should  contemplate  the  organization  of  the  General 
Assembly  if  we  would  rightly  construe  the  distribution 
of  power  and  use  to  the  lower  levels  of  Synod ical,  Pres- 
byterial  and  Sessional  constitution.  These  all  descend 
from  the  primitive  and  single  representation  of  church- 
power,  like  that  council  of  apostles  and  elders  in  Jeru- 
salem ;  and  we  may  well  assume  that  the  best  conformity 
we  have  to  that  original  pattern  should  be  studied,  sur- 
veyed and  appreciated  in  order  to  understand  the  relation 
and  propriety  of  all  derivatives  and  how  the  General 
Assembly  creates  the  Synod,  and  the  Synod  the  Presby- 
tery, and  the  Presbytery  the  local  Session,  in  the  sym- 
metry of  our  system.  The  fact  so  familiarly  observed 
— ^that  this  General  Assembly  is  annually  made  up  of 
commissioners  from  the  Presbyteries — does  by  no  means 
indicate  that  these  courts  below  create  the  courts  above, 
and  especially  the  General  Assembly.  It  is  merely  con- 
ventional that  Presbyteries  are  made  such  factors  at  pres- 
ent, instead  of  Synods  or  Sessions,  as  we  readily  see 
these  might  be  made  the  precincts  from  which  would 
come  the  composition  of  a  General  Assembly.  A  wise 
expediency  in  the  method  of  making  it  up  cannot  mod- 
ify or  translate  the  intrinsic  authority  and  relative  trans- 
cendency of  a  general  "representation  of  the  churches" 
to  tlie  Presbyteries  only  as  the  fountain, 

3.  This  high  court  is  a  body  of  living  men  to  whom 
belongs  in  superlative  degree  the  promise  of  ubiquitous 
and  everlasting  presence  on  the  part  of  their  adorable 
Head.  A  living  God,  a  living  Christ,  a  living  and 
eternal  Spirit,  abides  with  them  as  they  abide  with  him, 
according  to  his  own  inspired  word.     Written  coustitu- 


510  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

tions,  therefore,  so  far  as  they  are  man-made,  cannot  cre- 
ate this  tribunal,  from  which,  on  the  contrary,  they  must 
emanate  as  creatures,  in  the  nature  and  reason  of  things. 
Yet  this  General  Assembly  is  by  no  means  the  vicegerent 
of  her  Head.  She  cannot  carry  all  the  government  upon 
her  shoulder ;  she  cannot  stoop,  as  our  infinite  Lord  him- 
self can  do,  to  inspect  and  manage  little  things  as  well 
as  great  things,  all  interests  as  well  as  minute  and  de- 
tailed affairs  of  administration,  and  therefore  inferior 
courts  are  brought  into  existence  by  her  wisdom  for 
practical  help  to  herself;  and  these,  in  succession  of  both 
time  and  degree,  increased  in  number  as  her  exigency 
and  extension  required.  The  voluntary  part  with  which 
the  larger  would  set  off  the  smaller  body  of  representa- 
tion for  this  object  is  binding  alike  on  both  parties,  and 
may  not  be  transgressed  by  either.  The  Synod,  the 
Presbytery,  the  Session,  brought  into  existence  in  this 
way,  stand  henceforth  as  firmly  on  the  constitution  as 
the  General  Assembly  itself,  for  this  high  court  cannot 
go  back  on  itself,  its  overture,  its  confirmation,  which 
make  vested  rights  in  the  lower  courts  that  cannot  be 
revoked  by  the  higher.  Thus,  and  on  this  principle, 
the  doctrines  of  our  constitution,  as  contained  in  the 
Confession  of  Faith,  and,  indeed,  all  "constitutional 
rules,"  are  unalterable  by  the  will  or  prior  movement 
of  the  General  Assembly,  the  whole  Church,  represented 
by  the  Synod  of  New  York  and  Philadelphia,  having 
stipulated  at  the  original  formation  of  such  Assembly 
that  two-thirds  of  the  Presbyteries  may  propose  altera- 
tions or  amendments  which  shall  be  valid  if  subsequently 
enacted  by  the  General  Assembly.  This  organic  cove- 
nant against  the  facilities  of  change  is  felt  by  nearly  all 
intelligent  churchmen  to  be  still  binding  alike  on  Assem- 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    511 

bly  and  oo  Presbytery,  for  it  is  an  underlying  decree  of 
tliat  authority  which  gave  the  constitution  by  which  the 
General  Assembly  is  governed,  and  which,  though  not 
written  on  the  face  of  this  constitution,  morally  binds  us 
in  the  record  that  created  the  Assembly,  and  stipulated 
fundamentally  this  vital  enactment  respecting  alteration. 
But  early  in  the  present  century  this  obligation  was 
felt  to  be  a  bandage  too  stringent,  making  it  almost  im- 
possible to  revise  and  modify  those  regulations  of  method 
— called  "standing  rules"  at  the  first — in  the  exercise 
of  government  and  discipline  which    need  to  be  con- 
formed to  the  varieties  of  condition  and  life  that  pertain 
to  the  changing  generations  of  people,  in  the  Church  as 
well  as  in  the  world.     So,  by  consent  of  the  churches, 
tardily  and  reluctantly  given,  a  distinction  was  recognized 
between  such  procedures  of  government  as  relate  to  its 
temporal  administration  and  the  doctrines  contained  in 
the  Confession  of  Faith,  which  are  eternal  as  the  woril 
of  God  itself  in  proportion  as  they  are  fairly  derived 
from  the  volume   of  inspiration.     Accordingly,  an  al- 
tered formula  was  inserted  in  the  constitution,  changing 
"standing"  to   "constitutional"   rules  and   making   it 
proper  authority  in  the  General  Assembly,  instead  of 
two-thirds  of  the  Presbyteries,  to  begin  the  movement 
for  change  or  amendment  in  forms  of  regulated  order 
and  application  of  discipline  by  overture  sent  down  to 
all  the  Presbyteries  and  receiving  the  return  in  writing 
of  all  the  votes  thereon,  declaring  the  result,  in  case  of 
adoption,  to  be  a  part  of  our  constitution.    The  ultimate 
ratification  by  the  General  Assembly  ought  never  to  have 
been  omitted  or  separated  from  a  final  declaration  on  the 
adoption  of  an  overture,  because  the  beginning  of  such 
a  movement,  and  not  the  ending,  has   been  the  only 


512  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

modification  of  the  original  covenant  authorized  by  the 
churches,  and  also  because  the  Assembly  must  ascer- 
tain at  last  whether  an  overture  has  been  consistently 
adopted  or  adopted  only  in  part,  so  as  virtually  to  annul 
the  intention  of  the  supreme  judicatory  in  sending  it 
down.  This  did  occur  in  1827,  when  the  whole  return 
was  set  aside  as  abortive  because  only  parts  of  a  logical 
whole  had  been  voted  by  the  requisite  majority  of  Pres- 
byteries. 

Along  with  distinctly  administrative  measures  in  our 
constitution  thus  to  be  overtured  immediately  from  the 
Assembly  to  Presbyteries  in  the  direction  of  change  may 
be  minute  portions  of  the  doctrinal  standards,  which 
seem  to  be  like  rules  more  than  doctrines,  and  which 
are  alleged  fairly  to  shine  with  but  secondary  light, 
if  any,  of  Holy  Scripture,  in  doubtful  interpretation 
and  unconnected  with  any  capital  doctrine  of  the  system. 
Facility  of  alteration  may  go  to  some  retrenchment  of 
this  kind  also  without  much  danger,  l)ut  only  the 
clerical  error,  the  obsolete  word,  illogical  sentence  or 
detached  superfluity,  may  be  allowed  to  depart  readily 
by  this  easier  gateway  of  alteration.  And  the  sharp 
distinction  of  mode  by  our  fathers  should  ever  be  re- 
garded as  an  emphasis  of  denial  to  the  right  of  a 
General  Assembly,  or  any  portion  thereof  less  than 
two-thirds  of  the  Presbyteries,  beginning  the  motion 
to  reduce,  alter,  amend  or  dislocate  the  Confession  of 
Faith  and  the  Catechisms  incorporated  therewith.  It 
is  a  stipulated  plank  at  the  foundation  of  the  Assembly, 
a  heritage  secured  for  that  august  supremacy  before  it 
was  born,  a  charter  which  made  it  what  it  is  and  blessed, 
it  with  prosperity  and  strength.  Outside  of  the  con- 
stitution given  with    this  covenant,  the  understanding, 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    513 

nevertheless,  exists  in  equity  of  prior,  fuudameutal  and 
unchangeable  force. 

The  General  Assembly,  being  at  ouce  a  representa- 
tive of  Christ,  the  Head,  and  all  particular  churches  of 
the  name,  is  a  mystical  body,  though  literally  composed 
of  living  men  from  year  to  year.  We  cannot,  therefore, 
make  it  directly  the  subject  of  analysis  like  the  civil  or- 
ganizations which  it  may  resemble.  Elderships  make 
it  up  to  the  sight,  and  these  are  authorities  which  dawn 
upon  mankind  at  the  cradle  of  the  race,  Prehistorical 
but  not  unrevealed,  patriarchal  domination  was  known 
as  soon  as  "  men  began  to  call  upon  the  name  of  the 
Lord."  Genesis,  in  holy  Scripture,  is  the  first  record 
of  social  compact,  and  the  authority  of  man  over  men, 
and  the  claim  of  age  to  govern  youth  and  patriarch  to 
organize  the  subordination  of  descendants.  And  in  this 
visible  estate  the  first  promise  of  the  gospel  was  work- 
ing out  mysteriously  the  first  visibility  of  the  Church, 
though  inscrutably  folded  through  many  generations. 
Development  was  late  in  time  and  all  its  antecedents 
were  synthetical.  Corresponding  to  this  fact  are  all 
the  analogies  of  nature  to  be  seen.  Every  form  of  life 
in  its  organism  begins  with  elements  in  whole,  and  not 
in  part.  Even  the  tree,  which  may  })ropagate  itself  by 
the  twig  or  the  graft  when  it  is  grown,  unist  begin  from 
an  acorn  or  a  grain  of  seed  in  which  are  folded  all  the 
diversities  of  subsequent  germination.  But  animated 
life,  especially  the  human  body,  which  inspiration  has 
chiefly  selected  for  its  metaphor  of  a  Church,  both  visible 
and  invisible,  cannot  either  begin  or  be  propagated  by  a 
piece  or  a  limb  cut  off,  or  in  any  other  way  than  that  of 
the  embryo,  which  is  always  the  content  and  source  of 
any  development  "in  continuance."  Ps.  cxxxix.  16,  16. 

33 


514  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

The  physical  mystery  of  our  being  as  it  was  sung  by 
David  of  old  became  the  favorite  analogy  of  the  apostle 
Paul  for  the  mystery  of  a  Church-State,  and  the  first 
lesson  it  impresses  must  ever  be  that  the  whole  is  primaiy 
to  the  parts,  that  the  collective  Churcli  is  mother  of  the 
particular  church,  that  an  organic  wdiole  must  precede  an 
organic  part,  that  the  health  of  the  whole  must  be  avail- 
able for  the  sustenance  and  cure  of  the  parts  respectively, 
and  that  the  anointing  oil  which  flows  down  from  the 
head  of  our  only  Priest  must  suffuse  the  whole  body  as 
it  goes  "  down  to  the  skirts  of  his  garments."  We  are 
constrained  by  all  intimations,  both  iu  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  in  the  New,  to  guard  our  ideal  from  the  mis- 
apprehension— occasioned  in  republican  government  by 
the  difference  of  its  theory  and  practice — in  beginning 
"with  the  parts  and  building  up  by  drawing  these  together, 
"  the  primaries  " — a  congeries  of  these  indefinitely  scat- 
tered— as  the  basis  of  a  nation.  In  the  Church  one  be- 
comes mauv  ;  in  the  State  manv  become  one.  In  the 
Church  unity  is  broken  by  the  deflection  of  a  part ;  in 
the  State  unity  is  not  broken  by  the  loss  of  a  part,  either 
in  territory  or  in  citizenship.  As  long  as  loyal  numbers 
fill  its  army  and  abide  under  its  rule  there  is  unity  intact 
and  continued. 

4.  The  Church  in  history  accords  with  the  institute 
of  her  mystical  norm  in  revelation.  We  have  already 
noticed  the  primeval  assembly  of  apostles  and  eldei's  at 
Jerusalem,  representing  in  council  all  the  churches  then 
existing,  and  discussing  the  reference  from  Antioch  of  a 
critical  and  important  question  for  the  time,  and  deciding 
with  more  than  advice  in  return,  and  more  than  Antioch 
to  be  eujoined,  with  a  decree  of  binding  obligation  au- 
thoritatively promulgated  to  all  the  churches. 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    515 

Priesthood  instead  of  eldersliip  returning  to  rule 
with  temple-service  and  titles  restored  and  the  primi- 
tive ecclesia  moulded  again  as  Levitical  and  united 
with  imperial  despotism,  representative  government  was 
lost  in  Niceue  Christianity,  and  her  general  councils  were 
no  more  the  model  of  administration  as  it  was  originally 
constituted  by  apostles  and  elders.  Nothing  of  its  like- 
ness remained  but  the  stringent  authority  of  decisions, 
and  these  degenerated  apace  to  intolerance  and  persecu- 
tion. The  "dictates"  of  Hildebrand,  in  which  the 
mediaeval  papacy  culminated,  were  logically  inconsistent 
with  free  deliberation  of  councils,  either  general  or  pro- 
vincial. These  were  less  and  less  frequently  convoked  ; 
and  when,  at  irregular  intervals,  they  were  summoned  to 
meet,  the  main  business  became  a  mere  bolster  to  the 
usurpation  which  called  them  and  registry  of  decrees 
inspired  at  Rome.  We  must,  therefore,  come  to  the 
Reformation,  which  emancipated  private  judgment  and 
public  freedom  from  the  yoke  of  despotic  hierarchy,  for 
councils  made  whole  again  by  sound  speech  made  free 
and  true  representation  of  the  churches  made  fair  in  the 
adjustment  of  ratio  and  concernment  of  all. 

The  Reformed  Church  of  Scotland  in  its  first  organi- 
zation began  with  a  General  Assemblv  coming  together 
spontaneously  from  all  the  churches  converted,  and  adopt- 
ing books  of  discipline  which  contained  the  principles  of 
reconstruction  for  itself  and  all  subordinate  assemblies 
of  Synod,  Presbytery  and  Session  as  these  were  to  be 
subsequently  set  off  from  time  to  time  and  governed  by 
its  paramount  authority.  The  practical  force  of  truth 
developed  formation  from  above,  and  not  below  or 
beside,  and  embodied  itself  in  constitutional  formulas 
which  could    not  be  sent   down  as  overture   to   courts 


516  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

below  or  churches  below  that  were  only  to  be  gathered 
as  yet,  by  the  use  of  such  instruments,  in  teaching  "  doc- 
trine, discipline  and  distribution"  as  these  were  found 
in  the  Bible.  For  a  century,  almost,  the  Second  Book 
of  Discipline,  amending  the  imperfections  and  avoiding 
the  tentative  confusion  of  the  First  Book,  was  the  plat- 
form alike  of  the  Assembly,  Synod,  Presbytery  and 
Session,  although  the  imprimatur  of  the  general  and 
original  court  alone  was  afiixed  and  no  one  below  had 
been  invited  to  vote  on  its  adoption. 

When  the  commissioners  from  Scotland  to  the  West- 
minster Assembly  of  Divines  returned  with  the  finished 
work  of  that  memorable  convocation,  it  was  soon  adopted 
and  incorporated  with  existing  standards  by  the  General 
Assembly  without  any  transmission  to  Synod  or  Presby- 
tery for  the  approval  by  constituencies  below.  And  only 
then  it  was,  within  a  few  years  from  this  adoption,  and 
after  some  hundred  and  forty  years  of  stormy  time  and 
fiery  trial,  through  which  their  symbols  of  confession 
had  been  completed  and,  as  it  were,  seven  times  purified, 
that  this  venerable  mother-Church  passed  the  "  Barrier 
Act,"  as  it  is  called,  by  which  all  change  or  modification 
of  her  constitution  thereafter  must  be  overtured  to  the 
Presbyteries  and  enacted  only  after  a  majority  of  these 
should  signify  their  assent.  Thus  the  whole  Church  in 
representation  first  composed  the  system  by  which  au- 
thority was  handed  down  to  courts  of  her  own  crea- 
tion, to  be  invested  there  in  forms  of  constitutional 
immunity,  made  irrevocable. 

The  Westminster  Assembly  itself,  though  convoked 
by  secular  authority  when  ecclesiastical  authorities  were 
all  in  solution  by  the  force  of  Puritanical  sentiment  and 
zeal,  derived  no  construction   whatever  from  the  civil 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    517 

power  above  it,  Dor  yet  from  churchly  organizations  be- 
side or  below  it,  in  a  conjunction  of  singular  independ- 
ence from  all  sorts  of  constituency  the  world  over,  being 
a  spontaneous  "representation  of  all  the  churches"  and 
free  from  all  need  of  apologetical  propositions  in  its  Con- 
fession of  Faith.  It  was  "  the  whole  Church  "  defining 
truth,  declaring  discipline,  arranging  ministries,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bible, and  leaving  their  whole  conciliary  work 
to  speak  for  itself  without  waiting  for  a  single  echo  to 
return  or  consequent  ratification  by  Presbyteries  to  make 
it  binding.  Its  intrinsic  force  of  truth,  its  marvellous 
adaptation  to  the  kingdom  of  Christ,  made  it  the  crown 
of  a  second  Reformation. 

In  the  same  century,  and  but  a  little  while  before  it, 
was  the  Synod  of  Dort,  assembled  by  the  agency  of 
Maurice,  prince  of  Orange,  to  settle  the  strife  between 
Calvinism  and  Arminianism,  or  the  Belgic  Confession 
and  the  "  Remonstrants,"  who  were  followers  of  James 
Arminius.  England,  Scotland,  Switzerland,  Bremen, 
the  Palatinate  and  Hesse  readily  came  with  representa- 
tion of  the  churches  to  join  the  Belgic  deputies  in  the 
effort  of  conciliation,  and,  this  failing  in  the  dispassion- 
ate moderation  of  Contra-Remonstrance,  they  assembled 
to  vindicate  and  establish  more  luminously  than  ever  in 
the  light  of  Scripture  the  doctrines  contested.  Popish 
bigotry  in  the  government  of  France  forbade  the  attend- 
ance of  a  Protestant  representation  from  that  quarter, 
yet  the  summary  of  evangelical  Christendom  was  never 
so  full  in  meeting  as  on  that  occasion,  and  never  so  free 
from  acrimonious  debate.  And  yet  the  result  of  delib- 
eration there,  descending  as  a  heritage  to  Reformed 
churches,  never  depended  on  a  ratification  by  constitu- 
encies of  Synods  or  Presbyteries,  or  bishops  below  in  any 


618  CHURCH  QOVERNMENT. 

or  all  of  the  churches  represented.  Here,  again,  "the 
whole  Church,"  was  primary  as  a  body,  and  power  of 
doctrine  went  downward  to  the  parts  instead  of  upward, 
as  built  on  a  congeries  of  particular  churches  below 
which  waited  to  confirm  and  sustain  it.  Arbitration 
like  that  has  its  force  in  equity  more  than  by  the  con- 
sent of  parties  in  conclusion. 

The  Reformed  Church  in  France  had  a  National 
Synod,  representing  the  martyred  churches  of  Pres- 
byterian formation.  A  creed  and  standing  rules  of 
government,  discipline  and  worship  had  been  adopted 
as  the  constitution,  which  was  adhered  to  with  singular 
faithfulness  and  precision,  but  the  deputies  were  not 
mastered  by  its  letter,  which  was  their  own  production 
and  alterable  at  their  own  good  pleasure.  They  had  no 
Barrier  Act  to  limit  and  reduce  the  orig-inal  and  oriiriuat- 
ing  powers  of  that  renowned  Huguenot  representation. 
The  deputies  convened  with  a  consciousness  of  power 
derived  immediately  from  Christ  above,  without  alle- 
giance to  man  or  man-made  constitutions  of  their  own, 
or  instructions  from  provincial  Synods  or  Classes  or 
Consistories  combined.  Derived  from  the  Head,  and 
reserved  from  the  members  in  particular,  the  will  of 
that  consecrated  body  was  their  symbol  of  sovereignty. 
This  appeared  in  the  language  of  that  initiating  vow 
with  which  the  deputies  assembled:  "We  promise  be- 
fore God  to  submit  ourselves  to  all  that  may  be  con- 
cluded and  determined  by  your  Holy  Assembly,  to  obey 
and  execute  it  to  the  utmost  of  our  power,  being  per- 
suaded that  God  will  preside  among  you  and  lead  you 
by  his  Holy  Spirit  into  all  truth  and-  equity  by  the  rule 
of  his  word  for  the  good  and  edification  of  his  Church, 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY.    519 

to  tlie  glory  of  his  great  uame ;  which  we  humbly  beg 
of  his  Divine  Majesty,  in  our  daily  prayers."  * 

In  this  entire  collation  we  see  that  a  total  representa- 
tion precedes  a  partial  one  as  we  think  of  the  Church  in 
her  primaries  of  council,  that  the  expansive  ideal  is  more 
churchly  than  the  local,  that  the  communion  of  churches 
must  be  a  postulate  of  unity  with  which  to  begin  the 
organization  of  particular  churches,  instead  of  an  after- 
thought when  these  are  multiplied  in  the  neighborhood 
or  the  nation.  We  see,  also,  that  the  colonial  planting 
of  Presbyterianism  in  America,  beginning  witiiout  a 
written  constitution  of  our  own,  was  invigorated  and 
propelled  by  the  primal  forces  of  Dort,  Westminster 
and  Scotland  in  their  "  whole-Church  "  deliverances  as 
the  scattered  sheep  in  this  wilderness  were  gathered  into 
particular  churches.  The  first  organization  of  Presby- 
tery was  a  General  Assembly  in  which  these  churches 
M-ere  represented,  and  soon  afterward,  when  other  forma- 
tions of  like  elderships  were  added,  the  whole  sphere  was 
called  a  "Synod,"  and  this  body, constituted  from  all  the 
Presbyteries,  exercised  its  general  authority  in  1729  by 
adopting  unanimously  the  Westminster  Confession  of 
Faith  and  Catechisms.  This  adopting  act  was  subscribed 
by  all  the  ministers  present,  eighteen  in  number,  and 
made  the  condition  henceforth  of  admission  to  minis- 
terial communion  and  authority,  without  being  sent 
down  to  the  Presbyteries  or  the  individual  churches 
for  sanction  or  concurrence.  Unlike  the  cousrrerational 
covenant  in  each  separate  church,  to  be  subscribed  by 
every  member,  official  or  unofficial,  the  Presbyterian 
covenant  is  adopted  only  by  the  official  representatives 
of  all  the  churches  gathered  together  in  council,  while 
*  Quick's  Synodicon,  vol.  i.  p.  478. 


520  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

the  liberty  of  dissent  to  any  extent  short  of  scandal  or 
disorder  has  been  left  to  the  professing  people — ''  all 
snch  as  we  have  grounds  to  believe  Christ  will  at  last 
admit  to  the  kingdom  of  heaven." 

We  may  therefore  append  to  this  indication  of  princi- 
ples and  facts  underlying  the  whole  fabric  of  Presby- 
terian formation  several  corollaries  of  practical  import- 
ance to  the  symmetry  and  safety  of  our  scriptural  system. 

(1)  The  General  Assemljly,  in  its  nature,  must  possess 
the  power  of  eminent  domain  among  the  judicatories  and 
churches  of  this  denomination — that  is,  though  all  other 
courts  below  it,  and  set  oif  from  time  to  time  by  its  au- 
thority in  representing  all  the  churches,  must  be  sharply 
defined  and  limited  respectively  by  the  written  constitu- 
tion, which  details  their  subsidiary  province  precisely  as 
they  work  together  in  helpful  performance  of  the  duty 
assigned  to  the  whole  Church,  yet  this  whole  Church, 
in  the  General  Assembly  which  re])resents  it,  cannot  be 
exhausted  in  power  by  its  own  definitions  delivered. 
There  must  always  be  a  reserved  authority  for  exigences 
that  men  cannot  forecast.  No  prevision  of  uninspired 
wisdom  will  ever  invent  a  flexibility  of  charter  in  con- 
stitutions on  paper  which  is  adequate  for  the  strain  that 
is  always  coming  on  the  Church  in  her  militant  condi- 
tion. Even  her  best  combinations  made  outside  of  a 
written  constitution  may  soon  jjrove  to  be  mistaken, 
sending  to  subvert  more  than  to  help  the  polity  and  use 
of  such  an  instrument,  and  the  intervention  of  her  para- 
mount authority  in  reversing  and  rescinding  those  unwise 
regulations  must  not  be  condemned  as  unconstitutional, 
assuredly.  Much  less  may  it  be  charged  with  spiritual  des- 
potism in  putting  forth  power  in  that  way  which  the  Lord 
hath  given  "for  edification  and  not  for  destruction." 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  GENERAL  ASSEMBLY:    521 

The  power  of  eminent  domain  is  always  a  reservation 
for  extreme  necessities  arising  in  the  revolutions  of  time 
and  the  world.  God  has  set  his  Church  on  a  watch- 
tower  manned  with  living  witnesses  and  provided  with 
the  promise  of  his  Spirit  and  lively  oracles  already  in 
hand ;  and  when  the  enemy  cometh  in  like  a  flood,  the 
standard  to  be  lifted  up  against  him  is  not  one  of  parch- 
ment alone,  but  of  discretionary  expedience  also,  becom- 
ing the  situation  and  the  need.  Policy  in  exigences  must 
of  course  never  infringe  upon  the  constitution  by  which 
grantor  and  grantees  are  mutually  bound,  and  the  exer- 
cise of  it  beyond  the  constitutional  provisions  can  hardly 
ever  become  despotic  or  destructive  because  of  the  best 
conceivable  guarantees  of  moderation  and  right — the  in- 
habitation of  the  Holy  Ghost  as  a  counsellor  to  be  pleased, 
the  inspired  directory  of  his  own  record  which  is  "  profit- 
able for  correction,"  and  the  fact  that  this  General  As- 
sembly is  a  yearly  convocation  elected  anew  every  twelve- 
month by  the  churches  it  governs. 

(2)  Dissent  from  extraordinary  measures  of  this  high 
court  should  never  protest  with  a  view  to  separate  from 
the  body  in  dissolution  of  organic  union.  Where  no 
constitution  is  wrecked  in  tiding  it  over  the  breakers 
unskilfully,  the  pilotage  may  be  warned  without  being 
discharged  for  want  of  experience.  The  old  method  of 
appealing  from  an  erring  council  to  the  next  one  which 
is  better  informed  is  the  right  way  of  redress  for  discon- 
tented parties  who  remonstrate  against  the  unprecedented 
in  proceedings  of  the  General  Assembly. 

(3)  Subsequent  Assemblies  are  free  to  change  and 
reverse  any  measure,  outside  of  the  constitution,  that 
has  been  ill-advised,  mistaken  or  disproved  by  the  logic 
of  events.     The    reproach    of   inconsistency,  often  cast 


522  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

upon  the  records  of  our  highest  judicatory,  is  unwar- 
rantable, in  view  of  the  supreme  discretion  reposed  in 
its  nature.  When  moved,  beyond  the  lines  of  organic 
law  and  boundaries  of  constitutional  enactment,  to  con- 
front new  dangers  to  truth  and  holiness,  and  to  use  un- 
tried weapons  taken  from  adversaries  in  the  combat,  it  is 
human  to  err  even  in  the  highest  places  of  imperfectly 
sanctified  humanity.  Our  General  Assembly  lias  in- 
herited this  admission,  made  at  Westminster  centuries 
ago.  It  is  her  glory  instead  of  her  defect,  therefore,  to 
staud  corrected  from  year  to  year,  although  inconsistency 
in  her  transactions  through  all  contingencies  of  the  past 
is  exceptional  and  rare  indeed. 

(4)  Exempt  from  all  iron-clad  rigidity  in  her  casual 
deliverances  beyond  a  coustitution,  the  secret  of  true 
progress  may  be  found  in  this  right  and  power  of 
eminent  domain.  Though  she  sends  ahead  no  mere 
hypothesis  in  anything  of  progress,  and  becomes  of 
necessity  empirical  in  judging  opportunities  and  testing 
the  measures  of  innovation,  there  is  always  one  hand 
holding:  fast  what  has  been  alreadv  attained,  and  another 
waving  at  high  noon  to  signalize  progress  in  all  the  lines 
of  fhoughtj  in  all  endeavors  of  benevolence,  in  all  fulfil- 
ment of  prophecy,  in  all  freedom  of  combination  with 
other  denominations  to  spread  the  gospel  and  lay  founda- 
tions of  the  Redeemer's  kingdom,  binding  liberty  and 
union  together  in  that  co-operation  which  agrees  to 
differ  and  rejoices  in  the  truth,  making  increase  in 
the  strength  of  honest  convictions  equal  to  the  increase 
of  charity  in  meeting  diversities  at  the  house  of  our 
common  Master. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 

ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH. 

r\RDINANGES  are  institutions  of  divine  authority 
^  relating  to  the  worsliip  of  God.  A  threefold 
divinity  must  be  considered  in  their  nature,  common 
to  all  of  them,  however  distinctive  the  character  of 
each. 

1.  They  have  been  dictated  by  the  supreme  authority 
of  God  himself,  and  must  not  be  abrogated,  altered  or 
omitted  by  men  at  any  time  or  in  any  circumstances  but 
those  of  impossibility  when  the  observance  cannot  be 
rendered  because  of  personal  unfitness,  providential  hin- 
drance or  excusable  inability  of  obedience.  Regulations 
of  minor  importance  may  be  made  by  Church  authority 
in  connection  with  divine  ordinances  to  supply  the  facili- 
ties of  order,  time,  place,  and  even  mode  of  observance, 
which  does  not  obscure  nor  pervert  at  all  the  ordinance 
itself;  and  these  are  variable  and  dispensable  and  wise 
only  and  in  proportion  as  they  subserve  the  appre- 
hension of  divine  authority  for  the  ordinance  itself 

2.  All  divine  ordinances  are  worshipful  in  their  nature. 
Worship  is  always  adoration  in  act,  and,  of  course,  adora- 
tion is  active  toward  God  directlv.  There  is  onlv  "one 
Mediator  between  God  and  men,"  and  he  himself  is  God 
with  the  sympathies  of  our  nature  upon  him.  Him  we 
worship,  and  the  Father  in  him,  spiritually  as  directly 
also,  led  by  the  Spirit,  helped  and    advocated   by  the 

523 


524  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Spirit,  in  this  intimate  access  of  adoration  to  God : 
"  But  in  vain  they  do  worship  me,  teaching  for  doc- 
trines the  commandments  of  men."  And  we  may  rea- 
sonably note  under  this  declaration  of  our  Lord  the 
many  familiar  interventions  of  sacerdotalism  in  our 
day  which  seem  to  be  worse  than  "  in  vain "  for  the 
direct  and  immediate  adoration  of  Jesus — images,  cruci- 
fixes, pictures  and  intercession  of  saints,  dead  or  alive, 
to  help  the  common  people  in  worshipping  God.  Human 
art  is  not  divine  wisdom,  and  in  its  best  perfection  must 
be  daring  folly  when  it  puts  a  hand  between  the  sinner 
and  his  Saviour,  between  the  soul  and  God  its  Maker. 

3.  A  third  element  of  divinity  in  true  Church  ordi- 
nances must  be  that  of  propitiation.  Every  one  of 
them  bears  the  mark  of  atonement  made  once  for  all 
by  a  divine  Person.  The  Object  of  all  adoration  must 
open  up  for  us  the  way  to  himself,  and  the  truth,  the 
life,  the  sureuess,  of  this  way.  The  sureness  must  be 
''a  covenant  by  sacrifice."  The  sacrifice  must  be  of 
infinite  value,  in  which  all  the  treasures  of  Godhead 
are  hidden,  and  we  approach  him  on  this  way  because 
we  are  bought  to  come,  and  made  to  come,  by  the  same 
prevenient  grace  that  achieved  the  redemption.  It  is 
remarkable  that  the  original  Greek  word  which  in  its 
plural  is  translated  "ordinances"  in  Luke  i.  6  and  else- 
where signifies  "justification  "  as  its  essential  meaning, 
distinguished,  on  the  one  hand,  from  commandment,  and 
on  the  other  from  condemnation. 

In  the  letter  of  this  dcxaciofia,  we  have  justification  on 
the  ground  of  righteousness  judicially  imputed  as  a  char- 
acteristic element  in  all  the  ordinances  of  divine  worship. 
And  we  know  "it  is  God  that  justifieth."  Thus  the 
warrant,  the  worship  and  the  acceptance  are  all  alike 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  525 

divine — of  God,  and  not  of  man  :  "Ye  are  come  unto 
mount  Sion,  and  unto  the  city  of  the  living  God,  the 
heavenly  Jerusalem,  and  to  an  innumerable  company  of 
angels  ;  to  the  general  assembly  and  church  of  the  first 
born,  which  are  written  in  heaven,  and  to  God  the  Judge 
of  all,  and  to  the  spirits  of  just  men  made  perfect;  and 
to  Jesus  the  mediator  of  the  new  covenant,  and  to  the 
blood  of  sprinkling,  that  speaketh  better  things  than 
that  of  Abel."  Heb.  xii.  22-24. 

This  glorious  indication  to  the  Hebrews  of  New-Tes- 
taraent  ordinances  in  their  divinity  of  sanction,  use  and 
procurement  as  means  of  grace  to  men  emphasizes  in 
every  line  the  communion  of  saints,  whether  in  the 
body  or  out  of  the  body,  past,  present  and  future,  in 
assemblage  with  other  spirits  of  glorified  creation  look- 
ing into  these  things.  We  must  infer,  therefore,  pub- 
licity of  observance  to  be  the  crowning  duty  of  all 
believers  in  using  these  means  of  grace,  and  that  the 
unspeakable  benefit  of  private  use  is  enhanced  to  each 
one  by  the  participations  of  a  great  congregation. 
Thousfh  the  kiny-dom  of  God  is  within  us,  and  with 
the  heart  man  believeth  unto  righteousness,  yet  with 
the  mouth  confession  is  made  unto  salvation  in  diffus- 
ing its  joy  to  others,  and  so  multiplying  our  own. 

Enumeration  of  Ordinances. 
We  have  this  complete  in  the  seventh  chapter  of  our 
Presbvterian  Form  of  Government,  as  follows  :  "  The 
ordinances  established  by  Christ,  the  head,  in  a  particular 
church,  which  is  regularly  constituted  with  its  proper 
officers,  are  prayer,  singing  praises,  reading,  expounding 
and  preaching  the  word  of  God,  administering  baptism 
and  the  Lord's  Supper;  public  solemn  fasting  and  thanks- 


526  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

giving,  catechizing,  making  collections  for  the  poor,  and 
other  pious  purposes ;  exercising  discipline  ;  and  blessing 
the  people." 

All  these  ordinances  are  liturgical,  more  or  less — that 
is,  public  service  rendered  for  the  people,  to  the  people 
and  by  the  people,  any  of  these  senses  or  all  of  them 
together  being  included  fairly  in  the  term  liturgy,  ob- 
viously derived  from  two  Greek  words  which  signify 
"  the  public "  and  "  work."  This  compound  word  is 
Athenian,  most  probably,  in  its  origin,  and  is  intensely 
personal  in  its  allusion  and  use  at  Athens  and  other 
Greek  communities  to  which  it  was  transferred.  The 
classical  meaning  was  never  a  public  document  on  parch- 
ment, and  much  less  a  book,  and  still  less  a  missal  mass- 
book  in  sacerdotal  oblation.  It  was  a  capable  man  of 
means  and  patriotic  devotion  of  his  time  and  talents  and 
wealth  to  the  public  need,  both  in  war  and  in  peace — a 
man  who  thought  it  mean  to  give  only  what  the  taxation 
required  in  law  without  giving  more  spontaneously  to 
the  exigences  of  state  until  his  riches  were  exhausted, 
and  then  devolving  the  task  upon  the  next  richest  man 
who  thought  it  an  honor  to  succeed  him.*  It  required 
all  the  eloquence  and  democratic  influence  of  Demos- 
thenes to  reduce  that  civil  liturgy  to  more  equable  tax- 
ation and  common  consecration  of  the  people,  yet  the 
capabilities,  resources  and  faithfulness  of  persons  con- 
tinued to  be,  objectively  as  well  as  subjectively,  the 
liturgies  of  ancient  time. 

Correspondently  in  Christian  time,  the  witnessing 
apostles  made  fitness  and  faithfulness  of  elders  and 
evangelists  properly  chosen  to  administer  New-Testa- 
ment ordinances  to  be  the  liturgies  canonically  sanctioned 
*  See  the  Dictionaries  of  Brande  and  Anthon,  both. 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  527 

for  a  world-wide  C'hristianity ;  and  such  were  to  be  tra- 
ditional liturgies  for  all  time  indefinitely  future.  "  Lit- 
urgy "  is  the  Greek  word  transferred;  "ministry"  is 
the  same  translated.  Faithfulness  and  ability  of  living 
and  successive  ministers  of  the  gospel  are  the  true  litur- 
gical elements  of  divine  service  henceforth  and  ever : 
"  The  things  tiiat  thou  hast  heard  of  me  among  many 
witnesses,  the  same  commit  thou  to  faithful  men,  who 
shall  be  able  to  teach  others  also ;"  "  Study  to  shew  thy- 
self approved  unto  God,  a  workman  that  needeth  not  to 
be  ashamed,  rightly  dividing  the  word  of  truth  ;"  "  Fol- 
low righteousness,  faith,  charity,  peace,  with  them  that 
call  on  the  Lord  out  of  a  pure  heart."  2  Tim.  ii. 

When  we  turn  from  revelation  containing  these  litur- 
gical suggestions  to  history  in  its  fabulous  tradition,  the 
first  pravity  discovered  in  Christian  worship  was  found 
in  so-called  liture-ies  of  the  book  kind.  The  litur<z:ies 
of  Peter,  Matthew,  Mark  and  James  are  mentioned  by 
certain  Greek  and  Roman  authors,  who  reason  thus  in 
proving  them  to  be  genuinely  apostolical  after  making 
the  assertion  that  they  were  such  :  "They  contain  prayers 
for  the  dead  ;  the  actual  transmutation  of  bread  and  wine 
at  the  sacrament  into  the  real  body  and  blood  of  Christ, 
and  this  transubstantiation  offered  as  a  literal  sacrifice  on 
the  altar ;  therefore  they  must  have  originated  from  the 
apostles,  who,  we  know,  taught  these  doctrines." 

From  the  sham  pretences  of  such  a  logic  we  turn  to 
the  pages  of  authentic  history  and  search  in  vain  for  the 
existence  of  written  liturgies  anvwdiere  until  the  fourth 
century  of  the  Christian  era.  At  the  beginning  of  that 
century  the  emperor  Diocletian,  a  credulous  man  misled 
by  an  ambitious  son-in-law  and  instigated  by  a  [)agau 
priesthood,    began    his    persecution    of    the    Christians. 


528  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Being  averse  to  the  destruction  of  life,  and  having 
them  in  his  army  and  his  court,  and  even  his  own 
household,  he  cautiously  restrained  the  first  edict  against 
Christians  from  bloodshed,  and  ordered  only  their  sup- 
pression by  the  arrest  of  their  visible  prosperity  and  its 
causes.  Offices  and  all  positions  of  trust  and  influence 
were  to  be  taken  from  them,  and  especially  their  worship 
was  to  be  hindered  by  the  demolition  of  their  temples 
and  burning  to  ashes  of  all  their  sacred  books  and  docu- 
ments and  records. 

In  the  reported  execution  of  that  edict  mention  is 
made  of  Bibles  burned — fragments  of  canonical  Script- 
ure used  and  kept  in  their  churches — but  no  mention  or 
hint  is  given  of  liturgies  found  and  consumed.  Not 
even  the  "Galilean  Liturgy"  was  noticed  at  all,  which 
in  subsequent  history  vaunts  the  conjectural  date  of  176. 
When  we  consider  the  fact  that  Constautius  Chlorus, 
father  of  Constantine  the  Great,  was  then  reigning  in 
Gaul,  a  Christian  too — as  much,  at  least,  as  any  Csesar 
could  be  at  that  time — and  an  object  of  special  jealousy 
to  the  Csesars  of  the  East,  we  must  wonder  that  the 
manual  of  worship  at  his  court  was  not  signalized  in  the 
flames  of  that  imperial  persecution.  On  the  hypothesis 
of  any  writing  but  the  Holy  Bible,  in  whole  or  in  part, 
composed  for  the  devotions  of  Christian  worship  within 
the  first  three  hundred  years,  the  escape  of  such  a  liturgy 
from  such  a  conflagration  is  inexplicable. 

We  come  to  the  conclusion,  therefore,  that  the  first 
objective  liturgy,  in  the  modern  ecclesiastical  sense  of 
the  word,  was  composed  by  that  renowned  and  accom- 
plished Basil  of  Csesarea  in  Cappadocia  who  flourished 
about  the  middle  of  the  fourth  century,  followed  about 
twenty  years  later  by  the  still  more  celebrated  Chrvsos- 


ORDTNANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  529 

torn  of  Coustautiuople.  Both  of  these  Fathers  were 
great  rhetoricians  from  the  schools  of  Libauius,  and 
each  of  them  produced  a  liturgy  with  his  own  name  to 
it,  still  retained,  to  signify  an  original  production  pecu- 
liar to  their  times  and  places  and  characters  respectively, 
and  therefore  not  derived  at  all,  in  either  case,  from  any 
venerable  "  common-prayer "  book  antecedently  com- 
piled. In  fact,  the  prior  one  of  Basil  came  from  his 
pen  just  as  he  was  drawing  up  rules  and  regulations  for 
monks  in  the  monasteries  he  was  founding.  He  was 
himself  a  rigid  ascetic,  and  wore  the  habit  of  a  monk 
after  he  was  made  an  archbishop,  and  it  seemed  to  be 
his  aim  to  make  "  regulars  "  of  all  worshipping  people 
under  his  authority. 

These  two  liturgies,  though  near  to  each  other  in  time, 
were  not  regarded  as  rival  productions,  each  one  aspiring 
to  the  stereotype  of  canonical  fixedness  in  public  wor- 
ship, but,  like  the  conducting  of  divine  service  by  the 
parochial  bishops  of  our  own  day,  they  were  subjective 
more  than  objective,  free  and  voluntary,  bearing  the 
stamp  of  each  official  in  particular.  Uniformity,  how- 
ever, becoming  imperial  about  the  same  time,  soon  after- 
ward compelled  each  bishop  to  say  the  same  prayers  con- 
tinually in  the  particular  church  he  led.  This  itself  was 
no  hardship  nor  yoke  upon  the  freedom  of  worship  in- 
consistent with  the  capabilities  and  culture  of  an  officiat- 
ing minister,  as  long  as  the  same  prayers  were  composed 
by  himself  according  to  the  need  and  circumstances  of 
his  parish.  To  repeat  with  memoriter  utterance  the 
same  original  prayer  when  it  is  the  "  long "  or  general 
prayer  may  be  truly  liturgical,  as  it  is  subjective  and 
individual. 

Probably  no  minister  of  the  pj-esent  century  was  more 

34 


530  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

liturgical,  in  the  true  scriptural  sense,  than  John  McMil- 
lan, the  pioneer  and  patriarch  of  Presbyteriauisra  in 
Western  Pennsylvania,  of  whom  Daniel  Webster  said, 
"  Truly,  he  was  a  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness."  His 
praying  and  his  preaching  were  signalized  in  making 
that  wilderness  blossom  as  the  rose,  in  raising  up,  almost 
without  any  books,  by  his  own  tuition,  a  powerful  min- 
istry, and  in  founding  institutions  of  learning  which 
through  almost  half  the  century  furnished  nearly  one- 
fifth  of  all  the  ministers  on  this  continent  who  belonged 
to  this  denomination.  Yet  his  "long  prayer"  on  the 
Lord's  day  was  never  one  of  "  irregular  and  extravagant 
effusions,"  but,  on  the  contrary,  it  was  almost  invariably 
the  same  prayer  in  topics  and  scriptural  expression — so 
much  that  his  rustic  hearers  could  mark  the  time  by  the 
course  of  his  utterance  and  know  in  his  phraseology  how 
near  he  was  to  the  end.  But  at  the  close  of  his  sermon 
the  short  prayer  was  always  rich  and  fresh,  varied  and 
pertinent,  on  every  subject  and  occasion.  All  this  was 
perfect  liturgy  without  a  book.  Liturgy  was  in  that 
living  man  himself — his  personal  ability,  his  good  sense, 
his  practical  piety  and  devout  fervor  of  soul  in  dispens- 
ing ordinances,  combining  all  the  value  to  his  people  of 
"  common  prayer  "  with  the  quickening  interest  of  sup- 
plication ever  new  in  adaptation  to  things  both  "  old  and 
new  "  among  the  treasures  of  scriptural  preaching. 

Liturgy,  as  defined  in  the  modern  ecclesiastical  sense 
by  standard  lexicographers — "A  formulary  of  public 
worship;  the  ritual  according  to  which  the  religious 
services  of  a  church  are  performed  " — is  not  a  scriptural 
definition  at  all.  In  the  Bible  this  word,  whether  noun, 
verb  or  participle  in  its  use,  indicates  always  the  ministry 
or  ministering  of  living  and  well-qualified  men  person- 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  531 

ally  exerted.  By  a  beautiful  metonymy  the  Attic  orig- 
inal is  reproduced  in  the  New-Testament  morning  of 
Christian  worship.  (See  the  admirable  commentary  of 
Dr.  Joseph  Addison  Alexander  on  Acts  xiii.  2 :  "  Its 
true  sense  is  the  general  one  expressed  in  the  translation 
*  ministering/  in  the  discharge  of  their  official  functions, 
with  particular  reference  to  public  worship  "  (hcroopyou:;) 
— "  his  ministers  a  flame  of  fire."  Heb.  i.  7.) 

Of  course,  "  ministering  "  extends  the  liturgical  sense 
to  all  the  ordinances  enumerated  above,  and  the  specific 
variations  peculiar  to  each  will  be  noticed  more  fully 
when  we  come  to  explain  them  in  detail.  But  once  for 
all  we  must  notice  that  no  "  formulary  "  prepared  by 
inspired  or  uninspired  man  is  ever  hinted  in  Holy 
Scripture  as  given  for  exact  and  verbal  uniformity  in 
the  tenor  of  sanctuary  service,  and  we  therefore  may 
well  reverse  the  dictum  of  South  when  he  wi'ote,  "  The 
extemporizing  faculty  is  never  more  out  of  its  element 
than  in  the  pulpit/'  and  write  here  that  the  canons  of 
canting;  uniformity  are  never  more  out  of  their  element 
than  in  tlie  pulpit,  for  the  very  same  reason  that  "  ex- 
temporizing" is  condemned — the  lack  of  premeditation. 
We  never  can  serve  God  and  the  people  there  with  what 
costs  us  nothing,  and  surely  there  should  be  more  of  cost 
in  that  sublime  vocation  to  prayer  and  preaching  than  a 
mechanical  and  easv  exercise  of  turning;  over  leaves  of  a 
book  given  to  one  simply  to  be  read  where  it  has  been 
read  a  thousand  times  before,  and  along  with  a  manu- 
script which  may  perhaps  be  made  of  his  own  thoughts 
in  preaching  not  more  than  twenty  minutes  long. 

On  the  other  hand,  all  experience  and  observation  will 
attest  the  fact  that  premeditation  is  inseparable  from  what 
is  called  extempore  preaching,  and  is  a  supreme  necessity 


532  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

once  for  all,  and  specially  continued  every  week  to  the 
preacher — any  preacher  fit  for  the  pulpit  and  worthy  of 
the  place — premeditation  to  pray  as  well  as  preach,  and 
even  to  read  the  word  of  God  aright  in  its  letter,  which 
we  shall  see  in  dissertation  on  "  reading  "  as  a  particular 
ordinance.  The  ruminating  labor  of  thought  and  solici- 
tude of  soul  which  become  the  minister  of  earnest  mind 
and  heart  whose  liturgy  is  alive  in  ready  utterance  with- 
out a  book  have  no  parallel  in  painstaking  preparation 
for  public  speech  in  any  other  department  of  human 
eloquence;  and  so  the  true  liturgist,  whose  administra- 
tion ponders  what  he  has  to  say  in  connection  with 
every  ordinance,  will  be  ready  for  "  the  times  "  as  well 
as  time,  representing  the  age,  the  culture,  the  change, 
the  "  operation "  of  God's  hand  in  the  present  as  well 
as  past  experience  of  his  people. 

The  welling  of  deep  thought,  the  pertinence  of  season- 
able application,  the  vivid  emotions  of  originality,  the 
vital  transitions  of  analysis  and  good  order,  the  direct- 
ness of  good  speech,  the  unction  and  pathos, — all  belong 
to  the  liturgy  of  living  ministers  who  prepare  without 
manual,  but  with  all  their  might,  as  becomes  the  weak- 
ness and  contrition  of  mortal  man  in  stepping  to  the 
pulpit  most  acceptably  to  God  and  his  disciples.  Luther 
trembled  as  he  went  up ;  Sunmierfield  palpitated  as  he 
touched  the  pulpit  door.  Not,  by  any  means,  that  read- 
ing homily  from  paper  and  "collects"  from  books  two 
hundred  years  old,  and  yet  the  same,  are  to  be  forbidden 
by  any  law  or  to  be  disparaged  as  unprofitable  to  pious 
worshippers  who  prefer  that  way,  but  because  that  way 
is  not  liturgical  in  the  scriptural  sense  of  New- Testa- 
ment liturgy,  being  objective  more  than  subjective,  be- 
cause the  living  minister  is  more  consubstantiated  with 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  533 

the  word  of  God  where  it  it  is  "  gotten  by  heart "  and 
readily  recited  from  a  fond  memory  than  when  it  is 
toned  with  the  best  measures  of  prose  and  poetry  while 
the  eyes  of  the  reader  fail  to  gather  animation  from  the 
faces  of  the  people. 

It  may  be  added,  also,  in  this  connection,  that  versa- 
tility of  thought  in  due  preparation  for  living  liturgies, 
which  corrects  itself  in  premeditation  without  book  in 
hand  until  it  is  rightly  matured,  makes  a  ripe  ministra- 
tion comparatively;  for  extemporized  manuscript,  as  it  is 
hurried  by  the  hebdomadal  necessity  of  a  parochial 
bishop,  is  often  the  most  shallow  of  all  decent  prepara- 
tion for  the  first  day  of  the  week.  Attenuated  stuff  on 
paper  is  commonly  worse  than  extempore  gibberish  in 
speaking  on  the  part  of  an  educated  minister,  and  yet 
the  blame  of  thinness  must  be  attached  to  the  method 
more  than  to  the  man.  He  has  no  time  to  think  more 
and  more  deeply,  nor  to  revise  and  correct  the  improvi- 
sated  pages  before  him,  which,  it  may  be,  have  not  been 
quite  written  out  when  the  bell  is  rung  for  public  ser- 
vice. Machine  preaching  and  praying  will  not  save 
time,  but  lose  it,  in  the  liturgical  ministrations  of  the 
man  whose  premeditation  possesses  him  in  mind  and 
heart  more  than  he  possesses  it  in  book  and  folio. 

True  "  ministering/'  the  right  translation  of  true 
liturgies,  will  never  be  perfunctory  in  performance 
— that  is,  according  to  the  old  definition  of  Bishop 
Hall:  "Done  only  for  the  sake  of  getting  through, 
regardless  how  done."  The  "well  done"  may  be  well 
enough  when  the  minister  is  not  capable  of  more  than 
writing  out,  with  full  mind  and  warm  heart,  his  medi- 
tated thoughts  to  be  read  in  public  just  as  they  are 
written.     The    highest  regard  for   his    people   and    the 


534  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

presentation  of  truth  and  the  effect  of  his  composition 
when  he  himself  looks  at  them  through  an  intervention 
of  paper  only  may  consist  even  with  eminent  and  true 
service  in  the  pulpit,  but  a  still  "  more  excellent  way  "  is 
the  direct  way  a  servant  takes  in  waiting  on  his  master. 
The  master's  word  is  always  impromptu  ;  its  urgency  will 
wait  for  no  plans  of  facile  obedience,  or  until  the  minister 
puts  on  a  badge  or  dons  a  livery  or  shoulders  a  burden 
of  his  own.  Method  is  madness  when  it  delays  or  en- 
cumbers "the  swift  of  foot"  who  run  as  "swift  mes- 
sengers" to  rescue  men  that  are  perishing  in  sins. 
Directness  of  speech  is  more  direct  when  it  is  not 
written  out  beforehand.  Dr.  Watts  illustrated  this 
in  the  case  of  a  steward  to  an  English  baron  who  was 
much  aggrieved  by  the  insubordination  and  mischief  of 
the  servants.  When  he  complained  to  his  lord  of  their 
conduct,  the  baron  said,  "  Go,  and  in  my  name  chide 
them  sharply."  But  the  steward  said,  "  I  cannot  chide 
with  my  words ;  but  if  your  lordship  would  write  a 
chiding,  I  shall  go  and  read  it  to  them."  "  The  baron 
wrote,  the  steward  read  and  the  servants  smiled." 

These  ordinances  of  worship  are  all  of  them  liturgical 
in  connection  with  civil  observances  of  events  which  are 
providentially  ordered  in  human  life.  The  three  of 
these  that  are  most  important  and  signal  are  birth,  mar- 
riage and  death.  Here  Church  and  State,  private  and 
public  interest,  legal  and  social  record,  meet  together  to 
do  what  might  be  done  by  each  of  these  distinctions 
alone,  yet  best  done  when  they  are  conjoined  and 
solemnized  by  the  offices  of  religion,  which  are  the 
ordinances  of  worship,  prayer,  preaching  and  benedic- 
tion especially. 

1.  Birth  sends  to  the  man  of  God  for  some  recognition 


ORDINANCES  VF  THE  CHURCH.  535 

of  divine  ownership  at  the  advent  of  an  immortal  creat- 
ure :  "  Behold,  all  souls  are  mine ;  as  the  soul  of  the 
father  so  also  the  soul  of  the  son  is  mine."  Ezek. 
xviii.  4.  "Lo,  children  are  an  heritage  of  the  Lord." 
Ps.  cxxvii.  3.  The  signet  of  this  natural  possession 
and  covenanted  heritage  was  made  at  the  first  organiza- 
tion of  the  visible  Church  in  the  family  of  Abraham  and 
in  the  rite  of  circumcision.  The  application  of  that  seal 
was  public  as  it  could  be  made :  "All  that  were  born  in 
his  house,  and  all  that  were  bought  with  his  money, 
every  male  among  the  men  of  Abraham's  house."  Here 
was  household  initiation  at  the  beginning  of  ecclesia,  and 
so  it  was  continued  in  public  ministration  to  all  ages  of 
human  life  from  ninety  years  to  eight  days  old  :  "And 
Abraham  circumcised  his  son  Isaac  being  eight  days 
old,  as  God  had  commanded  him." 

Publication,  or  the  liturgy  of  the  seal  requiring  greater 
expansion  to  all  families  of  the  earth  and  both  sexes  of 
humanity,  our  Lord  substituted  for  circumcision,  a  world- 
wide convenience  in  sealing  the  family  covenant :  "  Teach- 
ing all  nations,  baptizing  them  in  the  name  of  the  Father, 
and  of  the  Son,  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  Here  we  see 
the  two  ordinances  of  preaching  and  baptism  manifestly 
proper  at  the  birth  of  any  person,  male  or  female,  and 
at  the  house  of  Cornelius  the  centurion,  a  devout  man, 
where  the  Gentiles  were  first  admitted  to  sealing  ordi- 
nances, we  have  the  scope  of  baptism  as  well  as  instruc- 
tive preaching,  plainly  comprehending  the  whole  house- 
hold of  Cornelius  with  "  his  kinsmen  and  friends,"  age 
and  nonage  assembled  together  at  his  call  to  receive  in- 
structiou  and  baptism  in  the  name  of  Jesus  Christ. 
"Now  therefore  are  we  all  here  present  before  God,  to 
hear  all  things  that  are  commanded  thee  of  God,"  said 


636  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Cornelius  to  Peter,  and  while  the  latter  was  yet  speak- 
ing as  a  witness  for  Christ  "  the  Holy  Ghost  fell  on  all 
them  which  heard  the  word."  Then  Peter  exclaimed, 
"  Can  any  man  forbid  water,  that  these  should  not  be 
baptized,  which  have  received  the  Holy  Ghost  as  well 
as  we?" 

Here,  undoubtedly,  is  intimated  the  legitimate  exten- 
sion of  baptism  to  as  wide  a  variety  of  age,  at  least,  as 
the  household  of  -Abraham  contained,  where  the  ancient 
seal  was  administered  alike  to  subjects  who  were  ninety 
years  old  and  infants  that  were  but  eight  days  old.  Sus- 
ceptibility of  the  Holy  Ghost  in  his  regenerating  agency 
is  all  that  conditions  Christian  baptism  for  birth  in.  the 
family  of  any  "  devout  man  who  feai's  God,  with  all  his 
house."  "  The  ordinances  of  heaven "  embrace  alike 
stupendous  magnitude  and  imperceptible  minuteness. 
The  same  eternal  Spirit  that  garnished  the  heavens 
with  great  stars  and  little  ones — so  little  that  their 
light  is  lost  on  the  Milky  Way — has  condescended  to 
do  likewise  in  ''the  church  that  is  in  the  house ;"  and 
say,  as  Peter  did  in  the  house  of  Cornelius,  Let  "them 
be  baptized  in  the  name  of  the  Lord." 

The  liturgical  performance  of  this  rite  on  the  occasion 
of  birth  requires,  of  course,  an  assembly  at  least  of  the 
household,  and  as  many  "  kinsmen  and  friends  "  as  can 
be  called  together  to  witness  the  solemnity  and  unite  in 
supplication  for  the  thing  signified  by  the  application  of 
baptismal  water,  the  sprinkling  of  atoning  blood,  the  re- 
generating and  sanctifying  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and 
all  the  blessings  of  covenanted  mercv  and  jjrace.  Private 
baptism  is  not  liturgic,  as  it  ought  to  be,  and  lay  baptism 
is  not  the  ordinance  at  all.  Surely  in  "ministering"  a 
minister  is  required,  and  the  minister  is  an  official  person 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  537 

alike  in  Scripture  and  in  ecclesiastical  diction.  Baptism 
is  belittled,  indeed,  if  not  a  mockery,  when  it  is  put 
above  its  own  official  dispensation.  Made  so  essential 
to  the  salvation  of  an  infant  that  it  must  be  done  with 
or  without  an  authorized  person  to  do  it,  this  great  ordi- 
nance of  worship  is  changed  to  a  fetich  of  vain  supe- 
stition. 

It  is  only  in  the  "public  service"  and  authorized  min- 
istration of  household  baptism  that  this  ordinance  can  be 
paralleled  by  the  analogous  treatment  of  birth  in  the 
civil  oversiofht  throuo-h  all  civilized  countries  of  the 
world,  and  especially  our  own.  The  family  circle,  the 
school  district,  the  State,  the  nation, — all  make  up  their 
vital  statistics  with  the  beginning  as  well  as  end  of 
human  life  in  reckoning  with  particular  attention. 
Courts  of  justice,  both  in  the  equities  of  chancery  and 
in  the  statutes  of  law,  inquire  diligently  about  the  birth, 
in  all  its  circumstances  of  time  and  place,  genealogy  and 
heirship,  as  they  determine  right  and  settle  the  claims  of 
generations.  Even  if  the  family  covenant  had  not  de- 
scended, from  Abraham  to  Peter,  as  this  apostle  declared 
it  had  fully  and  with  wider  extension  than  ever,  nature 
itself  would  have  cried  out  for  something  in  the  room 
of  circumcision  to  signalize  with  offices  of  religion  the 
first  epoch  of  each  personality  in  "a  chosen  generation, 
a  royal  priesthood,  an  holy  nation." 

If  Christianity  does  not  call  for  the  census  of  nativity 
and  promptly  proceed  to  recognize  with  ritual  honor 
those  who  are  born  within  her  pale,  interposing  for  the 
gospel  with  an  ordinance  of  worship  to  greet  them  and 
own  them  and  mark  them  and  seek  them  as  her  own, 
then,  truly,  the  seed  of  the  Church  is  an  orphanism, 
and  "the  mother  of  us  all"  is  recreant  with   indiffer- 


538  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

euce  to  family  record  and  Church  continuity  at  the  crisis 
when  a  mother's  peculiar  attention  and  special  care  must 
be  engaged  as  it  is  never  possible  again  to  be  in  the  career 
of  human  life.  The  baptism  of  infant  children  couches 
in  it  the  identity  of  the  Church  under  all  dispensations, 
and  the  analogy  of  all  wise,  humane  and  cultured  econo- 
mies in  forwarding  the  best  civilization  for  the  popula- 
tions of  our  globe. 

2.  Marriage,  the  next  most  important  event  of  life  to 
youth  at  maturity,  like  the  birth  of  sons  and  daughters, 
must  be  claimed  alike  by  the  Church  and  the  State  and 
be  mixed  in  its  relations  to  either.  It  is  a  civil  contract 
and  a  sacred  mystery  together.  A  dissolution  of  the 
contract  by  any  court  or  forum  of  civil  justice  cannot 
absolve  the  moral  obligation  from  its  binding  force  in 
the  authority  of  the  Church  except  for  cause  which 
has  been  specified  in  Holy  Scripture.  The  union  of 
parties  in  matrimonial  bonds,  like  that  of  a  regenerate 
soul  with  Christ  in  heaven,  is  perpetual  as  it  is  pure  and 
sincere.  Only  the  demonstration  that  such  regeneracy 
is  false  by  full  discovery  of  hidden  crime  or  flagitious 
guilt,  according  to  Bible  mention,  will  reconcile  the 
Church  to  the  separations  of  divorce. 

In  Christendom  for  the  first  three  hundred  years 
marriage  seems  to  have  been  simply  ecclesiastical  in 
the  mode  of  its  consummation,  solemnized  by  the  min- 
isters of  Christ  alone.  "  Only  in  the  Lord  "  was  the 
marriage  motto  prefixed  to  everything  about  the  solem- 
nity— the  parties,  the  vows,  the  witnesses  and  the  official 
ministration.  The  early  Fathers,  from  Tertullian  to 
Chrysostom,  were  in  unison  with  such  an  emphasis  on 
marriage.  Equally  religious,  or  more  so,  was  the  ante- 
nuptial contract — the  espousals,  the  betrothment,  Avhat 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  539 

we  now  call  the  engagement,  of  parties  to  each  other; 
and  the  actual  formality  of  the  wedding  was  mostly  in 
the  form  of  benediction  by  Christian  ministers  and  con- 
gratulation by  Christian  witnesses.  But  after  the  Church 
herself  was  wedded  to  the  State  by  imperial  domina- 
tion, all  the  ordinances  of  a  divinity  above  were  levelled 
to  the  plane  of  secular  appointments  by  man,  the  civil 
contract  in  marriage, — which  in  itself  was  both  natural 
and  right — became  the  preponderating  element  and 
gradually  pushed  the  ministers  of  religion  aside,  mak- 
ing the  sanctions  of  Christianity  an  empty  ceremony 
and  perverted  sacrament. 

This  profaneness  continued  until  the  time  of  Charle- 
magne. The  monasticism  which  regarded  marriage  as 
impure  and  religiously  unholy  had  now  spread  its 
cloisters  over  the  Christendom  of  Europe,  Africa  and 
Asia,  and  the  consequent  necessity  of  celibacy  in  the 
secular  clergy  also — now  enforced  by  council  after 
council  made  up  of  their  own  kind — only  stamped 
the  debasement  deeper,  until  that  which  the  apostle  of 
the  Gentiles  had  declared  to  be  "  honorable  in  all " 
(Heb.  xiii.  4)  was  now  sunk  beneath  the  dignity  of  a 
civil  right  alone  to  confirm  a  bargain  of  any  sort.  But 
reaction  came  with  Charlemagne,  that  magnificent  states- 
man of  the  Middle  Ao-es.  He  knew  enouo-h  of  the  Bible 
— which,  it  is  said,  he  loved  to  read  and  teach  as  much 
as  Alcuin  did — to  see  that  all  was  out  of  joint  in  Church 
and  State  and  social  interests  of  every  kind  as  long  as 
marriage  was  inferior  holiness  to  be  disparaged  and  dis- 
honored so.  He  looked  upon  it  as  the  main  prop  of  his 
empire,  and  therefore  the  civil  element  and  aspect  of  its 
importance  Avere  not  overlooked  by  the  sagacious  eye 
which    surveyed  a  line    of  transition,    from    the    faded 


540  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

cultus  of  ancient  Christianity  in  his  time,  to  the  worse 
fanaticism  of  mediaeval  darkness  and  agitation,  come, 
and  yet  to  come,  with  worse  degeneracy.  He  could 
not  go  transversely  at  this  line  and  become  reformer 
in  restoring  the  simplicity  of  heroic  ages  in  the  Church, 
for  that  prevailed  by  suffering,  which  was  not  his  temper, 
even  with  the  cross  upon  his  banners.  The  weapons  of 
his  warfare  were  carnal,  and  not  mighty  through  God  to 
the  pulling  down  of  strong  superstition.  But  the  prac- 
tical wisdom  of  his  mind  could  see  that  the  family  insti- 
tute was  the  basis  of  all  temporal  good  and  stable  empire, 
and  must  contain  a  celestial  mystery  which  ministers  of 
religion  should  solemnize,  while  functionaries  of  the 
State  would  sufficiently  recognize,  under  the  hands  of 
a  priesthood,  the  inviolable  compact  in  marriage  for  this 
life  which  all  civil  welfare  and  safety  required. 

Accoi'dingly,  this  potentate  compelled  the  clergy  to 
honor  in  the  people  what  they  dishonored  in  themselves. 
Civil  marriage  was  forbidden,  and  the  reaction,  as  usual, 
was  carried  to  the  opposite  extreme  of  utter  prohibition 
— so  much  that  imperial  authority  denounced  the  civil 
contract  alone  as  mere  concubinage.  And  so  much  has 
a  sacred  mystery  been  restored  to  the  ceremony  of  wed- 
lock ever  since  that  the  parentliesis  of  Paul  in  the  New- 
Testament  revelation  ("I  speak  concerning  Christ  and 
the  church  ")  remains  infixed,  the  sentiment  of  all  intel- 
ligent observers,  whether  papal,  Protestant  or  neither,  to 
this  day. 

The  great  Reformation  with  common  consent  has  re- 
adjusted the  solemnity  of  marriage  to  the  right  balance 
and  proportion  of  the  two  characters,  civil  and  religious, 
which  compose  it  by  discarding  alike  the  monkery  and 
paganism  that  Constantine  allowed  and  the  ritual  priest- 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  541 

liness  that  Charlemagne  commanded.  Probably  the  best 
expression  of  this  equipoise  to  be  found  is  in  the  Direct- 
ory for  Worship  adopted  by  tlie  Westminster  Assembly 
of  Divines  in  the  seventeenth  century  and  made  one  of 
our  own  symbols  now  and  still.  See  the  eleventh  chapter 
and  first  two  sections,  as  follows : 

"  I.  Marriage  is  not  a  sacrament ;  nor  peculiar  to  the 
Church  of  Christ.  It  is  proper  that  every  common- 
wealth, for  the  good  of  society,  make  laws  to  regulate 
marriage ;  which  all  citizens  are  bound  to  obey. 

"  II.  Christians  ought  to  marry  in  tiie  Lord  :  there- 
fore it  is  fit  that  their  marria«;e  be  solemnized  by  a 
lawful  minister;  that  special  instruction  maybe  given 
them,  and  suitable  prayers  made,  when  they  enter  into 
this  relation." 

The  second  section  above  was  resisted,  indeed,  by  the 
learned  Selden,  in  his  book  entitled  The  Hebrew  Wife, 
because  he  was  Erastian,  a  lawyer  and  writer  at  the  head 
of  an  Erastian  party  in  the  turbulent  time  of  the  Com- 
monwealth, which  party  was  utterly  opposed  to  clerical 
prerogative  and  struggled  to  restore  a  civil  asceudency 
over  evervthine;  in  religrion  but  mere  instruction  and 
persuasion.  Even  all  the  ordinances  of  worship  at 
marriage  were  proscribed  by  that  infatuation. 

These  are  preaching,  prayer,  blessing  and  discipline. 
The  first  of  these  includes  on  this  occasion,  with  the 
utmost  brevity,  instruction  and  exhortation  ;  the  second, 
adoration  and  entreaty ;  the  third,  Old-Testament  or 
New-Testament  form  of  benediction ;  the  fourth,  a 
challenge  at  the  first  and  admonition  at  the  last.  These 
four  elements  may  be  distributed  variously  in  worship- 
ping God  at  the  solemnity  of  marriage,  and  skill  ex- 
quisite as  it  is  devout  will    be   needed   to  do   it   well. 


542  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

Words  here,  not  things,  are  best  to  convey  your  mean- 
ing :  "  Words  fitly  spoken  are  like  aj^ples  of  gold  in 
pictures  of  silver."  A  ring  is  not  an  ap})le,  and  what 
does  it  mean  ?  No  phrasing  of  the  sense  could  be  more 
ambiguous.  In  the  fashions  of  ancient  Christianity  the 
ring  is  mentioned  as  annulus  pronubus — something  given 
before  marriage,  privately,  to  seal  the  fidelity  of  parties 
in  betrothal,  but,  of  course,  in  that  sense  it  is  not  in  the 
liturgy  of  marriage,  which  must  be  a  "  public  service." 

The  publication  of  marriage  is  always  indispensable, 
alike  in  the  purpose  and  in  the  consummation,  wherever 
it  is  to  be  solemnized  in  a  Christian  community.  Private 
marriage  cannot  be  liturgical ;  clandestine  marriage  can- 
not be  allowed.  Ordinances  of  divine  worship,  like  their 
adorable  Master,  "cannot  be  hidden,"  and  without  these 
wedlock  is  hardly  civil,  and  is  decidedly  pagan. 

III.  The  third  main  event  of  human  life  on  earth  is 
the  end  of  it  in  time.  What  birth  begins  and  marriage 
doubles  death  dissolves  in  the  separation  of  body  and 
soul.  And  here  comes  an  epoch  of  unchangeableness 
appointed  in  the  destiny  of  man  beyond  which  our 
existence  will  be  continuous  only  in  the  development 
of  germs  that  never  die.  Probation  is  over  and  eternal 
life  goes  on,  immortal,  with  or  without  a  body  and  with 
life  more  and  more  abundantly  given.  Probation  means 
change ;  and  if  its  process  of  trial  be  not  determined  at 
the  first  death,  it  will  not  be  at  the  second.  Beginning 
again  and  again,  the  series  of  indecisive  proof  would 
never  end,  and  all  eternity  must  wait  for  the  finish  of 
moral  probation,  precluding  the  moral  and  intellectual 
progress  which  begins  with  what  is  fixed,  in  tuition, 
before  death  occurs :  "  In  the  place  where  the  tree 
falleth,    there    it   shall    be."    Eccl.  xi.   3.     This   awful 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  543 

position  which  death  occupies  in  the  moral  government 
of  God  should  gather  to  its  requiem  many  of  his  ordi- 
nances— the  reading,  the  preaching,  the  singing,  the 
prayer,  the  benediction.  Where  these  cluster  and  crowd 
the  time  there  is  scarcely  a  minimum  left  for  words  of 
panegyric  on  the  deceased.  And  this  is  just  as  it  ought 
to  be.  The  funeral  discourse  ought  seldom  or  never  to 
be  memorial  sermon.  If  this  be  needed  for  history,  let 
curiosity  wait  for  the  proper  time.  And  let  the  burial- 
service  be  a  solemnity  of  reverential  and  adoring  wor- 
ship. Anything  like  biography  at  this  conjuncture  will 
be  but  curious  diversion  of  soul.  It  will  hardly  ever 
satisfy  the  mourners  with  adequacy  and  completeness, 
and  will  hardly  ever  fail  to  waken  criticism  in  othei-s 
who  subtract  from  eulogy  even  more  than  balancing  de- 
fects ;  and  thus  may  be  lost  the  great  advantage  of  a 
striking  event  in  providence  to  enliven  with  fresh 
interest  eternal  truths  of  grace  on  which  we  live  now 
and  for  ever. 

Narrative,  therefore,  is  wisely  funereal  as  it  turns  new 
light  on  themes  of  preaching — the  vanity  of  life,  the 
wages  of  sin,  the  certainty  of  death,  the  end  of  proba- 
tion, the  death  of  death  in  the  death  of  Christ,  good 
hope  through  grace,  the  redeeming  of  time,  the  comfort 
of  the  Spirit,  the  consolations  of  the  gospel  and  the 
triumphs  of  the  resurrection.  In  short,  all  the  sub- 
lime beliefs  of  Christianity  may  converge  illumination 
at  the  rite  of  Christian  burial.  The  ordinance  of  read- 
ing without  note  or  comment  is  itself  so  abundantly  sup- 
plied for  the  same  subject  with  pages  both  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New  that  the  richest  variety  of  perti- 
nence to  the  occasion  may  be  found  in  reading  alone. 
And    so  it  is   of  psalmody  and    song — old   and  "new 


544  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

song,"  plaintive  and  triumphant,  sung  in  the  sanctuary 
below,  where  sorrow  weeps,  and  sung  in  the  sanctuary 
above,  where  ''  the  Man  of  sorrows,  acquainted  with 
grief,"  hath  ascended  and  called  the  sympathies  of 
heaven  to  respond:  ''Blessed  are  the  dead  which  die 
in  the  Lord  from  henceforth  ;"  "  God  shall  wipe  away 
all  tears  from  their  eyes ;  and  there  shall  be  no  more 
death,  neither  sorrow,  nor  crying,  neither  shall  there 
be  any  more  pain  :  for  the  former  things  are  passed 
away." 

But  prayer  on  the  event  of  death  is  the  chief  ordi- 
nance of  worship  through  all  the  ages  of  mortality 
among  Christians.  No  other  approach  to  "  the  King 
eternal "  can  come  so  near  him  or  touch  his  sovereignty 
with  such  intimacy  of  utterance,  bowing  at  the  inmost 
shrine  of  his  decrees  and  there  becoming  itself  a  thing 
decreed  as  condition  precedent  to  real  success  at  a  tlirone 
of  grace  in  reference  to  mysteries  of  providence :  "And 
it  shall  come  to  pass,  that  before  they  call,  I  will  answer; 
and  while  they  are  yet  speaking,  I  will  hear;"  "Your 
Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have  need  of,  before 
ye  ask  him."  Both  old  and  new  dispensations  thus 
bind  prayer  up  with  inscrutable  relations  of  oracle  and 
event. 

Yet  prayer  is  not  to  be  offered  for  the  dead  themselves 
except  in  thanksgiving,  which  is  only  a  part  of  prayer  ; 
and  even  this  part  is  proper  only  at  the  death  of  true 
believers,  and  for  the  living,  not  the  dead,  in  availability. 
We  thank  God  for  the  example  of  living  to  his  glory 
which  they  leave  to  us,  and  for  the  victory  over  sin  and 
death  which  they  achieved  by  faith  and  the  strength  of 
his  arm.  This  gratitude  in  prayer,  expressed  on  the 
death    of  the   righteous,    became,  however,  probably  a 


ORDINANCES  OF  THE  CHURCH.  545 

transitiou-point  in  history  for  the  beginniug  of  that 
absurd  superstition  "  prayers  for  the  dead  and  to  the 
dead."  That  austere  enthusiast  of  the  second  century 
Tertullian  was  probably  the  first  to  mention  it  when  he 
called  the  death-day  of  martyrs  their  birthday,  and  sug- 
gested natal  honors  to  be  rendered  yearly  at  their  tombs. 
Thanks  for  the  instant  glorification  of  immaculate  souls 
at  death  soon  led  a  vain  imagination  to  speculate  on  the 
case  of  imperfect  saints  at  their  departure  from  the  body 
without  full  preparation  for  a  welcome  to  the  blessedness 
of  heaven.  Some  intermediate  jiaradise  was  invented 
where  they  should  be  detained  for  a  complete  purgation, 
and  probation  there  called  back  probation  here  to  help 
it  through  by  prayer  and  eucharistic  sacrifice. 

"  Purgatory  "  came  from  the  loss  of  sound  theology 
in  regard  to  the  distinction  between  justification  and 
sanctification — the  latter  gradual,  and  the  former  with- 
out degrees.  All  the  glory  of  Nicene  Christianity  was 
overshadowed  by  the  darkness  and  confusion  ^of  igno- 
rance on  this  radical  subject.  Even  Augustine  prayed 
for  his  mother,  Monica,  after  her  death,  supposing 
that,  perfect  as  she  seemed  to  be  on  earth,  some  unseen 
mixture  of  sin  in  her  soul  needed  intercession  still  by 
the  sacerdotal  son  surviving  her.  How  much  better 
than  the  best  orthodoxy  of  that  "Augustan  age"  is  the 
"  Shorter  Catechism  "  in  our  hands  ! — "  The  souls  of 
believers  are,  at  their  death,  made  perfect  in  holiness, 
and  do  immediately  pass  into  glory ;  and  their  bodies, 
being  still  united  to  Christ,  do  rest  in  their  graves  till 
the  resurrection." 

Becoming  this  assurance  will  be  the  doxology  of  bless- 
ing to  all  surviving  believers :  "  The  love  of  God,  the 
grace  of  Christ  and  the  communion  of  the  Holy  Ghost." 

35 


546  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT. 

A  more  special  form  than  this  epitome  of  all  benediction 
is  given  by  the  apostle  Panl  at  the  close  of  his  letter  to 
the  Hebrews,  where  he  says,  "  Pray  for  us"  (not  for  the 
dead) ;  "  Now  the  God  of  peace,  that  brought  again  from 
the  dead  our  Lord  Jesus,  that  great  Shepherd  of  the  sheep, 
through  the  blood  of  the  everlasting  covenant,  make  you 
perfect  in  every  good  work  to  do  his  will,  Avorkiug  in  you 
that  which  is  well  pleasing  in  his  sight,  through  Jesus 
Christ,  to  whom  be  glory  for  ever  and  ever.     Amen." 


INDEX. 


Aaron,  called  for  his  eloquence,  327, 

337. 

Abraham,  organization  of  the  Church 
begun  in  his  family,  .i8. 

Admission  to  the  visible  Church,  445, 
446. 

Adrian,  Pope,  166. 

Alcuin,  539. 

Alexander,  bishop  of  Jerusalem, 
141. 

Alexander,  Joseph  Addison,  Dr.,  on 
Matt.  18:15-18,  55;  on  "an- 
gel," 184,  185  ;  on  "  ministered  " 
(Acts  13:2),  531. 

Alexandir,  Pope,  171. 

Alexander  Severus,  Life  of,  402. 

Alexandria,  catechetical  school  of, 
141. 

Altar,  none  in  Jewish  synagogue  or 
primitive  Christian  church,  95; 
reinstated  in  church,  204. 

Ambrose,  on  "  Peter,"  "  rock"  (Matt. 
16  :  18),  159  :  on  "  the  name  of 
'  apostles,'  "  189  ;  titidus  of,  241  ; 
on  ruling  elders,  331;  on  dea- 
cons, 306  ;  election  of,  408. 

Ames,  Dr.,  499. 

Anabaptism,  70,  110,  117,  123. 

Anaeletus,  164. 

Ananias,  134. 

Anarchy  conducive  to  false  doctrine, 
29,'30. 

Andover  question,  492,  501. 

Andrew,  191. 

Angel,  different  meanings  of,  183; 
of  the  synagogue,  183  ;  in  Reve- 
lation, 184  :  not  a  prelate,  185. 

Anglican  Church,  claim  of  catholi- 
city, 14;  use  of  term  "church," 
66  ;  lacks  provision  for  discip- 
line, 68,  69;  possesses  chief 
"note"  of  a  true  Church,  69, 
70;  its  hierarchy  at  first  civil, 
173,  then  "apostolic,"  173,  174; 
Ordinal  of,  247 ;  definition  of 
sacrament,  427  ;  theory  of  ordi- 
nation, 428;  convocation,  465, 
466. 


Antioch,  reference  from,  479-488. 

A  polios,  134. 

Appeal,  right  of.  46,  47,  463,  494. 

Apostle,  different  senses  of,  145,  146. 

Apostles,  the,  special  qualifications 
of,  147,  148;  chief  errand  to  bear 
witness,  149-151.  175,  176,  411, 
412:  equality  in  rank,  152-lfiO; 
no  suecessiirs  in  office,  lt)U-172, 
175-191  ;  fablod  dioceses  of,  191, 
192;  on  ordination,  203,205;  la- 
ter use  of  term,  189,  190. 

Apostle-bishop,  190.     See  BinJiop. 

Apostolic  Fathers,  308. 

Apostolic  succession,  two  schemes 
of,  160,  Ifil;  papal  scheme  refu- 
ted, 161-172:  prelatic  scheme  re- 
futed, 173,  200;  no  foundation 
in  Scripture,  nor  in  primitive 
Church  history,  248  ;  Nicene  ori- 
gin of,  248. 

"Apt  to  teach,"  breadth  of  meaning 
of,  224,  280,  281,  298,  335,  336, 
497:  qualification  of  "ruling" 
as  well  as  "  teaching  "  elder,  332, 
338-341. 

Archbishops, created  by  Constantino, 
271. 

Archdeacons,  371. 

Arminianisra,  517. 

Association,  in  Congregationalism, 
449. 

Athanasian  doctrine  of  Christ,  21, 
22. 

Augsburg  Confession,  68. 

Augustine,  on  the  Church  and  Script- 
ure, 18;  maintains  private  right 
to  read  the  Scriptures,  138;  on 
hierarchic  despotism,  163;  influ- 
ences Zosimus,  169  ;  on  "  apos- 
tles," 189;  titiihtx  of,  241;  op- 
poses confirmation  by  diocesan 
bishops,  254 ;  writes  to  the  "  cler- 
gy "  and  "elders,"  331;  prayed 
lor  the  dead,  545. 

Augu?tinian  doctrine  of  church- 
membership,  22. 

.-Vuxentius,  bishop  of  Milan,  408. 

547 


548 


INDEX. 


Avignon,  162. 

Babylon,  167. 

Baillie,  commissioner  to  Westmin- 
ster Assemblj',  3J-7. 

Bancroft,  Archbishop,  asserted  di- 
vine right  of  bishops,  173,  174. 

Baptism,  proper  subjects  of,  44;  or- 
dinance of  profession,  67,  118, 
123  ;  heritage  of  the  household, 
98 ;  extent  of  its  ministration, 
114;  constitutes  membership  in 
visible  Church,  1?2,  123,  256; 
disparaged  by  rite  of  confirma- 
tion, 253-255 ;  not  to  be  repeated, 
263 ;  to  be  administered  by  a 
"  minister  "  or  "  teaching  elder," 
256,345,536,537:  the  New-Tes- 
tament seal  of  the  family  cove- 
nant, 535;  a  liturgical  ordinance, 
536,  537. 

Baptism,  household,  privilege  of 
baptized  members,  111,  112. 
See  Sponnors. 

Baptism  of  infants,  authority  for, 
41  ;  rejected  by  Baptists,  68  : 
shows  the  identity  of  the  Church 
in  all  dispensations,  538. 

Baptists,  their  spiritual  life,  64; 
anomalous  position,  66,  67  ;  dis- 
cipline, 68. 

Baptized  persons,  privileges  of,  99 ; 
government  of,  117-127. 

Barnabas,  ordination  of,  221 :  in  what 
sense  an  "apostle,"  178. 

Barrier  Act,  22,  516. 

Basil,  138  :  Liturgy  of,  528,  529. 

Bede,  the  Venerable,  195. 

Belgic  Confession,  517. 

Bellarmine,  on  the  Church,  54;  on 
alleged  primacy  of  Peter,  159, 
1 60  :  legacy  of,  1 62  ;  denies  apos- 
tolic  office  to  bishops,  175;  on 
the  election  of  ''  the  seven,"  411. 

Benediction,  a  liturgical  ordinance, 
526,  5:;4,  541,  643,  545,  546. 

Beza,  on  "  the  church"  (Matt.  18  :  17), 
56  ;   on  (caraAeyeffffw,  384. 

Bezaleel,  351. 

Birth,  within  the  pale  of  the  Church, 
calls  for  ecclesiastical  recogni- 
tion, 97,  98 :  by  baptism,  634- 
537  ;  civil  analogy,  537,  538. 

Bishop,  New  Testament  and  early 
patristic  synonvm  of  presbyter 
or  elder,  11,  94,   191,  245-248, 


273,  308,  334;  Scripture  identity 
conceded  by  prelacy,  247 ;  in- 
cludes two  classes,  teaching  and 
ruling,  219;  specially  denotes 
presbyter  of  a  particular  church, 
190,  208;  distinguishes theteach- 
ing  elder,  282,  327  ;  elected  by 
the  people,  225;  qualifications 
of,  246  ;  scriptural  and  primitive 
jurisdiction  of,  267-269  :  distinct 
from  evangelist,  273 ;  commis- 
sioned to  ordain,  273  ;  Ignatian 
use  of  term,  311-316;  title  of 
Presbyterian  pastor,  186.  See  El- 
ders, Preshyter,  Presbyter-hishvp. 

Bishops,  "apostolic"  or  diocesan, 
190,  191,  194;  created  by  Con- 
stantine,  210,  271  ;  alleged  com- 
mission of,  212;  usurpations  of, 
216  ;  privileges  alleged  and  refu- 
ted, 249-276;  not  scriptural,  244, 
246;  nor  primitive,  309,  310; 
quarrels  of,  271. 

Bishops,  parochial, claim  superiority 
of  rank,  208 ;  growth  of  power 
of,  269,  327-329 ;  ordination  of, 
402. 

Bohemian  Brethren,  had  ruling  el- 
ders, 332. 

Boston  platform,  460. 

Brown,  Brownism,  Brownist,  64, 
448,    500. 

Burnet,  Bishop,  35,  196,  198,  288. 

Butler,  Bishop,  196,  197. 

C^SAR  BOUGIA,  171. 

Calvin,  allowed  hierarchy  in  Eng- 
land, 12;  on  "the  church" 
(Matt.  18:17),  55;  tests  of 
the  true  Church,  64,  65 ;  on 
Romanism,  65,  66;  particular- 
ized the  term  "church,"  66;  on 
discipline,  69;  differed  with 
other  Reformers  on  terms  of 
communion,  101 ;  on  confirma- 
tion, 252 ;  instituted  annual 
election  of  ruling  elders,  347 ; 
on  deaconess  Phcjebe,  380, 

Calvinism,  617. 

Cambridge  platform,  recognized  rul- 
ing eldership,  290 ;  460. 

Campbell,  of  Aberdeen,  65. 

Campbell,  Thomas  and  Alexander, 
founders  of  "The  Disciples," 
435,    436. 

Cardinal  deacons,  371. 


INDEX. 


549 


Carthage.     See  ConncU. 

Cartwrigbt,  Thomas  (Martin  Mar- 
Prehite),  174;  on  "laying  on 
of    hand?,"   253,   450. 

Catechism,  Shorter,  death  of  believ- 
ers, 545. 

Catechisms,  Westminster,  adopted 
by  colonial  General  Assembly 
and  made  a  test  for  the  minis- 
try, 519,  520;  rule  for  altera- 
tions in,  512. 

Catechizing,  a  liturgical  ordinance, 
526. 

Catholicity,  Anglican  claim  to,  14. 

Celibacy  of  the  clergy,  enforced  by 
councils,  589. 

Cenchrea,  378,  379. 

Censure,  121,  128,  255,  257,  261,  450, 
492.     See  Discipline. 

Census,  civil,  analogy  of,  125. 

Chalmers,  Thomas,  on  deaconess 
Phcebe,  381. 

Charlemagne,  restored  the  ecclesias- 
tical solemnization  of  marriage, 
539-541. 

Children,  in  the  Jewish  ecclesia,  86; 
church-membership  of,  96-99 ; 
baptism  of,  98,  108,  109.  See 
Baptism   of  In/ants. 

Chorepiscopi,  270. 

Chrysostom,  on  private  right  to  read 
the  Scriptures,  138  ;  called  "  the 
thirteentli  apostle,"  188;  on  the 
oflBce  of  "the  seven,"  363;  on 
deacons,  366  ;  on  marriage,  538  ; 
Liturgy  of,  528,  529. 

Church,  the,  visible  and  invisible, 
7-9 ;  one  in  all  dispensations, 
10,  11,  360,  422,  538;  its  true 
doctrine  and  government  de- 
rived from  the  Scriptures,  16- 
23 ;  derivation  and  meanings 
of  the  term,  48-56,  222;  par- 
ticular sense,  49,  66;  collective 
sense,  44,  49,  50,  471-478;  gen- 
eral sense,  50 ;  spiritual  sense, 
50-54 ;  tribunal  or  judicatory 
sense,  54,  55,  450,  451  ;  an  or- 
ganization, 10,  314,  315  ;  the  in- 
visible, Westminster  definition 
of,  56  ;  compared  with  the  vis- 
ible, 57  ;  the  visible,  Westmins- 
ter definition  of.  56,  57  :  estab- 
lished under  Abraham,  58  :  con- 
tinued under  Moses,  59 ;  enlarge- 
ment predicted,  59,  60 ;    secta- 


rian divisions  in,  61-64;  tests 
of  a  true  branch,  64-72  ;  mixed 
character  of,  72-80,  106:  constit- 
uencv  of,  96-142 ;  unitv  of,  80, 
457-462;  purity  of,  462-466.  See 
Ecclesid. 

Church  and  State,  united  in  theoc- 
racy of  Israel,  107 ;  separated 
by  Christ,  35  ;  united  under  Con- 
stantine,  539. 

Church  government,  a  form  neces- 
sary, and  of  divine  origin,  25; 
o  priori  argument,  26-32  ;  ar- 
gument from  O.-T.  prophecy, 
32-35  ;  principles  authorized  by 
Christ,  35-37  ;  principles  gath- 
ered from  Scripture  and  reason, 
37-47,  96  ;  patriiirchal  and  hier- 
archical forms,  243 ;  Christo- 
apostolic  form,  243,  244. 

Church  history,  use  of,  21,  22. 

Church-membership,  how  constitut- 
ed, 66,  67,  96,  97  ;  privileges  of, 
99.     See  Govermueut. 

Church  polity.  Reformers'  indiffer- 
ence to,   12. 

Cicero,  153. 

Circumcision,  administered  to  chil- 
dren, 67,  86  ;  argues  baptism  of 
children,  98  :  supplanted  by  bap- 
tism, 535-537. 

Class-leader  (Methodist)  answers  to 
ruling  elder,  304,  340. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  on  bishops 
and  elders,  and  the  heavenly 
st:ite,  323;  on  presbyters  and 
deacons,  412. 

Clement  of  Rome,  on  Paul's  trav- 
els, 195  ;  letter  to  the  Corinthian 
church  on  revolt  against  elders, 
308-311  ;  on  ordination  and  elec- 
tion of  church  oflBcers,  407,  412. 

Clement  (pseudo),  author  of  the 
Becognitious,  193. 

Cletus,  164. 

Collections  for  the  poor,  etc.,  a  litur- 
gical ordinance,  526. 

Collet/iiim  presbyterortim,  bb. 

Committeemen  (Congregationalism), 
substitute  for  ruling  elders,  305. 

Common  Prayer-book,  not  used  in 
the  primitive  Church,  526,  528, 
529  ;  not  liturgical  in  the  script- 
ural sense,  532. 

Complaint,  42. 

Confession  of  Faith,  alterations  in 


550 


INDEX. 


the,  510-512:  adoption  by  Gen- 
eral Assembly  of  Church  of  Scot- 
land, 516;  its  intrinsic  authori- 
tativeness,  517  ;  adoiitioii  by  co- 
lonial General  Assembly,  and 
made  a  test  for  the  ministry, 
519. 

"  Confirm,"  etc.,  in  Scripture,  251. 

Confirmation,  prelalic  rite  of,  de- 
fined by  Bishop  llubart,  219- 
251  :  unscri])fui'al,  25U-263;  dis- 
parages baptism,  253-255 ;  dis- 
approved by  Jerome  and  Au- 
gustine, and  the  North  African 
anil  Greek  churches,  254. 

Congregation,  used  for  "church" 
by    Tyndale   and  Cranmer,   48. 

Congregationalism,  polity  of,  305, 
437  :  induction  of  pastor,  467  ; 
remedy  for  ministerial  unfaith- 
fulness, 467,  468  :  advisory  coun- 
cils, 492,  493;  ordination,  600; 
in  Connecticut  and  Massachu- 
setts, 489. 

Consistory,  judicatory  of  aparticulivr 
church,  433,  505. 

Consociation,  in  Congregationalism, 
449,  489. 

Constantine,  age  of,  Tractarian  ap- 
peal to,  14  ;  called  an  "  apostle," 
189;  instituted  diocesan  bishop- 
rics, 208,  and  an  ecclesiastical 
aristocracy,  270,  271;  united 
Church  and  State,  539;  al- 
lowed monkery  and  paganism, 
540. 

Constantinople.     See  Council. 

Constituency  of  the  Church,  96-142  ; 
membership  of  infants.  97;  de- 
pository of  Christ's  missionary 
commission,  130-136.  See 
Chnrch-  mem  hersh  ip. 

Constitution,  State  and  Federal, 
analogy    of,    30,    31. 

Constitution,  The  (of  Presbyterian 
Church),  on  Church  government, 
25 ;  its  relation  to  the  General 
Assembly,  509,  510  ;  law  of  alter- 
ations in,  510-513;  in  Church 
of  Scotland,  516. 

Constitutional  importance  of  the 
General    Assembly,    507-522. 

Contra-Remonstrance,  517. 

Contribution,  of  church-member,  a 
prerequisite  for  church  suffrage, 
128-130. 


Convention,  of  Prot.  Episc.  Church 
in  America,  466. 

Conversion,  prerequisite  to  worthy 
partaking  of  Lord's  Supper, 
how    far    discernible,    100. 

Convocation,  of  Anglican  Church, 
465,    466 

Cornelius,  baptism  of  household  of, 
115,  116,  535,  536. 

Council,  of  Carthage,  294,  414;  of 
Constantinople,  170,366;  at  Je- 
rusalem, 93,  94,  156,  157,  258, 
280,  343,  478-488,  514  ;  of  Nice, 
208,  329,  402;  of  Trent,  169, 
414,  415,  427. 

Councils,  Roman  Catholic,  4S5  ;  right 
authority  of,  500-502  ;  post-Ni- 
cene,  not  truly  representative, 
515  ;  made  representative  again 
by  the  Reformation,  515. 

Covenants,  the  family,  and  the  per- 
sonal, 112-114,  149. 

Credible  profession,  100-105. 

Cranmer,  Archbishop,  48,  173. 

Cromwell.  Oliver,  494. 

Culdees,  195. 

Cum  tituln  ordination,  required  by 
Council  of  Trent,  414,  415. 

Cyprian,  overrates  bishops.  81,  216; 
concedes  private  right  to  read 
the  Scriptures,  138;  titulns  of, 
241  ;  distinguishes  "  teaching 
elders,"  324 ;  on  deacons,  366 ; 
on  ordination  as  involving  pop- 
ular suffrage,  407,  408,  413. 

Daniel,  162. 

Davies,  Samuel,  137. 

Deacons,  a  New-Testament  title  of 
office,  11,  94;  probation,  elec- 
tion and  ordination  of,  41,  132, 
407;  male  and  female.  219;  at 
Philippi  ,  245,  246:  inheritance 
from  transient  offices,  287:  mean- 
ing of  term,  36n,  399  ;  synonyms, 
360,  361,  370;  office  in  Jewish 
synagogue,  361;  apostolic  re- 
construction of  office,  361-364; 
not  preacliers,  362,  363  ;  qualifi- 
cations of,  363  ;  office  complete 
and  definite,  365-  duties  of,  366- 
369,  397,  398  ;  superintended  by 
'•the  seven,"  410,  411.— Rela- 
tion to  elders  and  trustees,  368, 
369 ;  why  the  office  should  be 
kept    distinct    from    the   elder- 


INDEX. 


551 


ship,  370-374,  and  its  functions 
not  transferred  to  civil  "over- 
seers of  the  poor,"  37J-377 ; 
deacons  shouKl  be  supplement- 
ed b^?  deaconesses,  393-401 ; 
mode  of  ordination,  423,  424. — 
In  I  (J  nut  inn' 8  time,  313-315. — 
In  pre/acy,  265,  260  ;  post-apos- 
tolic modification  of  office,  206, 
267 ;  episcopal  exaltation  of, 
215,  270,  32S,  391,  392,  411  : 
forbidden  to  marry.  372. — In 
Con(jretfiitii)n(ilism,  430. 

Deaconess,  378-401 ;  a  distinct  oflBce, 
378-3H1  :  qualifications,  3S1 ;  or- 
ganization, 382-3SS ;  discontin- 
uance, 389-392  ;  need  for  recon- 
struction, 392-401. 

Death,  ends  probation,  542;  appro- 
priate religious  ordinances,  543- 
540. 

Decade,  substituted  for  week,  13. 

Delegates,  of  Prot.  Episc.  Church  in 
America,  303. 

Demetrius,  bishop  of  Alexandria, 
141. 

Demitting  the  ministry,  235. 

Demosthenes,  257,  484,  520. 

Denominations,  characteristics  of, 
471. 

Diocese,  its  secular  origin,  and  ec- 
clesiastical adoption  by  Con- 
stantine,    208,    270. 

Diocletian,  persecution  of  the  Chris- 
tians, 527,  528. 

Directory  for  Worship,  on  admis- 
sion to  Lord's  Supper,  99,  100; 
to  sealing  ordinances,  114;  on 
order  in  public  worship,  397 ; 
on  marriage,  541. 

"  Disciples,  The,"  polity  of,  435,  436. 

Discipline,  its  warrant  in  Scripture, 
42,  and  reason,  45:  a  "note" 
of  a  true  Church,  05,  68  ;  among 
Friends  and  Baptists,  68 ;  An- 
glicans and  Lutherans,  68,  69  : 
Romanists,  120,  121;  dispensed 
in  the  synagogue,  86 :  implies 
examination  of  candidates  for 
the  Lord's  Supper,  1(15:  the 
baptized  are  subjects  thereof, 
117-127:  submission  to  it  a 
prerequisite  for  church  suf-  i 
frage,  128,  129:  parity  of 
ministers  in,  255-2()l  ;  nature 
of,  256,  257 ;  not    monopolized  : 


by  apostles,  260,  261 ;  requires 
ruling  elders,  306 ;  requires  a 
qualified  judicatory,  433,  438- 
441,  450-454;  its  relation  to 
congregations,  462,  463 ;  to 
heretical  error,  491,  492;  a 
liturgical    ordinance,   526,   541. 

Discipline,  First  Book  of  (of  Church 
of  Scotland),  423,  436,  516  ;  Sec- 
ond Book  of,  345,  347,  510. 

Discipline,  revised  Book  of  (United 
States),  on  certificate  of  dis- 
mission,   118. 

Dismission,  certificate  of,  118. 

Disparities,  alleged,  of  official  rank, 
refuted,  249-270. 

Divine  right,  in  Church  polity, 
25,  26 ;  derived  from  Script- 
ure, 37—15 ;  and  from  reason, 
45-47. 

Divine  right  of  bishops  asserted  by 
Bancroft,  173. 

Divorce,  when  admissible,  538. 

Doddridge,  Dr.,  288. 

Dodwell,  Dr.,  248,  288. 

Dorotheus,  193. 

Dort.  Synod  of,  517,  518. 

Douglass,  commissioner  to  West- 
minster  Assembly,   347. 

Dwight,  Dr.,  288. 

EccLESiA,  48-79;  derivation  and 
meaning,  48 ;  synonym,  Sep- 
tuagint  use,  secular  use  in  N.  T., 
49;  five  technical  senses  in  N. 
T.,  49-56,  80.     See  Church. 

Ecclesi;istical  institute,  the,  80-95: 
the  synagogue,  not  the  temple, 
the  permanent  ecclesiastical  in- 
stitute, 81,  82;  jierpetuated  un- 
der the  New  Testament,  94,  214, 

See  Sl/)lril/rilJI(e. 

Edwards,  Jonathan,  differeil  with 
Stoddard  on  terms  of  admis- 
sion to  the  Lord's  Supper,  Idl  : 
"prince  of  theologians,'"  153; 
his  opinion  of  the  polity  of  In- 
dependency, 443,  499. 

Eld.ad  and  Medad.  140. 

Elders,  or  presbyters,  office  derived 
from  the  Old-Testament  ecclesisi, 
II,  94,  144,  145.  203:  in  Script- 
ure convertible  with  "bishops," 
11,  232,  245-248,  273,  334;  gen- 
eric sense,  including  "ruling" 
and  "teaching,"  307,  336-342; 


552 


INDEX. 


plural  in  one  church,  37,  284, 
285,  434;  election  and  ordina- 
tion of,  ]32;  comtnissioned  to 
ordain,  273 ;  division  into 
"teaching"  or  "preaching" 
and  "ruling,"  224-226,  497; 
judicatory  in  synagogue,  55, 
86;  in  Christian  Church,  100, 
249  ;  controversy  of  Drs.  Miller 
and  Wilson,  306-308. —  "  El- 
ders" among  "The  Disciples," 
435. 

Elders,  ruling,  warrant  for,  42, 
43;  election  of,  130;  post-Ni- 
cene  exclusion  from  councils 
and  church  sessions,  and  sub- 
ordination to  deacons,  270  ;  an- 
tiquity and  permanence  of  of- 
fice, 277,  278,  280,  283,  284; 
origin  of  distinct  office,  281- 
283;  its  warrant,  283-299;  ex- 
pediency, 299-306 ;  historical 
authority,  306-333 ;  qualifica- 
tions, 280,  334-359:  rank,  342- 
354;  duties,  354-359;  prelatic 
suppression,  370,  371,  391,  392; 
mode  of  ordination,  423  ;  share 
in  ordination  of  other  officers, 
424,  425  ;  termed  session  or  con- 
sistory, 433 ;  relation  to  dea- 
cons, 368,  369,  373,  377,  395, 
396.  —  Substitutes  in  prelacy, 
303  ;  in  Methodist  Episcopal  and 
Contjrefjiitional  churches,  304, 
305  ;  former  existence,  and  dis- 
continuance, in  Indepiendency, 
290,   305,   498,   499. 

Elders,  teaching  or  preaching,  dis- 
tinguished from  ruling,  42,  43, 
287-299  ;  permanency  and  life- 
tenure  of  office,  227-237  :  qual- 
ifications of,  232,  244  ;  distinct- 
ively termed  "bishop,"  282; 
entitled  to  distinct  oniination, 
282,  346  ;  inheritance  from  tran- 
sient offices,  287  ;  med  helj)  of 
ruling  elders,  300-302,  434,  435  : 
functions  and  duties,  343-345, 
356;  origin  of  special  commis- 
sion, 364,  365 ;  relation  to  dea- 
cons, 368,  377. — In  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church,  304,  4L'5,  426. 

Eldership,  ruling,  projiei  ly  a  life-of- 
fice, 345,  349-354 ;  not  rotary, 
346,  347 ;  nor  triennial,  348- 
354. 


Election,  popular,  of  officers,  404- 
417 ;  to  be  ratified  by  official 
laying  on  of  hands,  417,  447, 
448.     See  Siiffraye. 

"  Eminent  domain,"  of  the  General 
Assembly,  520-522. 

England,  Church  of.  See  Anglican 
Church. 

Ephori,  320. 

Episcopacy,  enhancement  of,  326- 
329 :  diocesan,  supported  by 
interpolations,  271;  "divine 
right "  of,  asserted  by  Ban- 
croft, 173. 

Episcopate,  the  historical,  of  elders, 
11. 

Erasmus,     indecision     of,     76;    on 

icaTaAe-yecr^w,      384. 

Erastianism,  69,  541. 

Espousals,  or  engagement,  in  the 
ante-Nicene    Church,   638,   539. 

Eusebius,  Arianism  of,  76 ;  on  title 
"  apostles,"  188,  189  ;  on  James, 
193  ;  on  succession  in  the  min- 
istry, 210  ;  on  deacons,  366. 

Evangelists,  primitive,  belonged  to 
the  ministry  of  gifts,  213;  were 
unordained,  213,  214  ;  auxiliary 
to  the  ministry  of  witness  and 
that  of  orders,  214,  215;  with- 
out settled  charge,  272  ;  not  su- 
perior to  pastors  or  bishops, 
273,    274. 

Evangelists,  lay  (modern),  216,  217  ; 
proper  function  of,  220-222. 

Evangelists,  among  "  The  Disci- 
ples,"   436. 

Exarchs,  created  by  Constantine, 
271. 

Excommunication,  power  of,  345. 

"False  Apostles,"  182,  183. 

Family,  the,  unit  of  the  Church,  57, 
111,  112. 

Fasting,  a  liturgical  ordinance,  423, 
525. 

First  day  of  the  week,  sanctity  of, 
44. 

Form  (see  Church  Government),  rela- 
tion to  principles,  29  ;  second- 
ary to  doctrine,  37,  38. 

"  Form  of  Government,"  on  the  need 
for  a  form,  25;  on  election  of  a 
pastor,  128;  on  perpetuity  of 
ruling  elder  and  deacon,  348 ; 
provision  for  vacancy,  356:  on 


INDEX. 


553 


judicatories,  507 ;  on  church 
ordinances,    525,    626. 

France,  Reformed  Cliurch  of,  "  Dis- 
cipline," on  elders  and  deacons, 
348  ;  on  deacons,  ;iOG,  367  ;  Na- 
tiiinal  Synod  of,  518,  519. 

Friends,  their  error,  61  ;  anomalous 
position,  66;  attitude  toward 
the  sacraments  and  the  Script- 
ures, 67,  68;  discipline,  68; 
reject  ministry  of  orders,  227, 
334. 

Funeral  discourse,  proper  topics  of, 
543. 

General  Assemblies,  warranted  by 
Scripture,  45. 

General  Assembly,  the  highest  judi- 
catory, 457  ;  constitutional  im- 
portance of,  507-522 ;  the  pri- 
mary court,  508 ;  its  composi- 
tion, 509  ;  not  the  creature  of 
the  Constitution,  509,  510;  au- 
thor of  the  lower  courts,  510; 
extent  of  authority  to  alter  the 
Constitution,  510-513;  history 
of  the  institution,  514-520 ; 
power  of  "eminent  domain," 
520-522;  method  of  dissent 
from,  521. — In  Scotland:  On 
lay  conference  and  pastoral 
preachin;;;,  137. — In  the  United 
States  :  Origin  of,  22  ;  on  apos- 
tasy of  Church  of  Rome,  71; 
on  process  against  baptized 
members,  117,  118;  on  election 
of  ruling  elders,  130;  main- 
tains right  of  private  judg- 
ment of  the  Scriptures,  138: 
on  duration  of  eldership  and 
diaconate,  348 ;  on  institution 
of  elders  and  deacons,  369 : 
on  mode  of  ordination,  423; 
on  recognition  of  non-Presby- 
terian ordination,  429,  430. 

Gifts,  ministry  of,  144,213-215;  su- 
pernatural, 144;  natural,  220; 
exercise  of,   136-142. 

Gill,  Dr.  (on  Ezek.  43  :  11,  12),  34, 
35. 

Gillespie,  George,  commissioner  to 
Westminster  Assembly,  299, 
347;  protest  against  "lay-el- 
der,"   306. 

Gleig,  Bishop,  177,  191. 

Government     by     church-members 


instead  of  representatives,  rea- 
sons against,  437-454. 

"Governments"  (1  Cor.  12:28),  of 
divine  appointment,  37,  441, 
442.     See   Church   Government, 

Gregory  of  Nyssen,  193. 

(iregory  Thaumaturgus,  268. 

Gregory  (1.)  the  Great,  condemns 
claim  of  primacy,  169  ;  distin- 
guishes clergy  and  ruling  elders, 
332. 

Griswold,  Bishop,  consecration  of, 
199. 

Grotius,  his  rationalism,  76. 

Hadrian,  81,  204. 

Hall,  Bishop,  definition  of  "per- 
functory,"   533. 

Hammond,  Dr.,  192,  248. 

llegesippus,  193. 

"  Helps,"  an  official  term,  379. 

Henry  VIII.,  200. 

Henderson,  commissioner  to  West- 
minster Assembly,  347. 

Hernias,  The  Pastor,  317-319;  on 
deacons,  366. 

Herodotus,  257. 

Hildebrand,  "  dictates,"  166,  515. 

Hoadley,  Bishop,  248. 

Hobart,  Bishop,  consecration  of,  199  ; 
on  confirmation,  249,  250;  term 
for  bajitism,  253. 

Hodge,  Charles,  Dr.,  definition  of 
"  Church,"  10  ;  on  deaconess 
Phoebe,  380. 

Holland,  Reformed  Church  of,  grand 
consistory,  348  ;  on  deacons,  367. 

Honorius,  Pope,  170. 

Hopkins,  Samuel,  201. 

'•  Ignatian  Controversy,"  311,  312. 

Ignatius,  on  Onesimus,  185  ;  on  pres- 
byters, 189;  presbyter-bishops, 
216;  duties  of  a  bishop,  268, 
269  ;  recognizes  bishop,  presby- 
ters and  deacons  as  coexisting 
in  one  church,  311-316;  epistle 
to  the  Magnesians,  312,  313;  to 
the  Trallians,  314 ;  greeting  to 
deaconesses,  386. 

Independency,  formerly  had  ruling 
elders,  305  ;  its  polity,  437,  442, 
443  ;  origin,  448;  translation  to 
Congregationalism,  449  ;  inter- 
relation of  churches,  490;  com- 
pared with  Presbytery,  494-496 ; 


554 


INDEX. 


a  changing  system,  498 ;  ordi- 
nation, 500  ;  councils,  501,  502  ; 
defl-cts,  503,  604-. 

Independent  divines,  on  ruling  el- 
ders, 28S,  499. 

"IndiBerent  things,"  controvers}-, 
37. 

Induction,  in  Congregationalism, 
407. 

Infallibility,  of  the  Church,  alleged, 
18,  19:  disclaimed,  21;  of  the 
pope,  169. 

Inniicent,  Pope,  166. 

Installation,  4;U,  432.    " 

Irenajus,  teaches  apostolic  succes- 
sion through  presbyter-bishops, 
131,  208,  209,  216",  321  ;  infer- 
ence from  his  phrase  ''presid- 
ing elders,"  321,  322. 

Isidore,  on  elders,  332. 

Itinerancy,  of  pastors,  arguments 
against,  237-242;  of  licentiates, 
advisability  of,  408,  417. 

Jacob,  420,  421. 

James,  191;  no  proof  of  diocesan 
episcopacy,  193;  at  the  Council 
of  Jerusalem,  486. 

Jansenists,  65. 

Jerome,  definition  of  the  Church,  18  ; 
temper,  76;  concedes  private 
right  to  read  the  Scriptures, 
138  ;  on  catechetical  school  of 
Alexandria,  141 ;  on  N.-T. 
"  bishop  "  and  "  presbyter," 
208;  excuses  "  apostle-bishops  " 
249;  disapproves  confirmation 
by  diocesan  bishops,  254;  on 
N.-T.  deacons,  366 ;  term  for 
post-Nicene  deacons,  371. 

Jerusalem,  the  church  at,  471-478; 
persecution  at,  473,  474.  See 
Council. 

Jerusalem  Chamber,  22. 

Jewish  temple  and  ritual,  abolition 
of,  11,  81. 

John,  the  apostle,  157,  163,  164,183, 
184,  191;  also  an  elder,  228, 
247,  218,  319. 

Josephus,  on  the  sj'nagogue,  83,  84; 
on  the  Saiihedrin,  484. 

Joshua,  140,  421. 

Judas  Iscariot,  107,  108,  132,  176, 
177. 

Judicatories,  433-454 ;  the  lowest, 
called    session    or     consistory. 


433  :  each  church  should  have  a 
representative  tribunal,  46,433, 

434  ;  church  government  should 
not  be  by  the  pastor  alone,  434, 

435  ;  nor  by  homogeneous  el- 
ders, 435,  436 ;  nor  by  church- 
members  directl}',  437-454. 

Judicatories  in  gradation,  455-506; 
Presbyterian  supeiior  courts, 
457  ;  reasons  for  their  e.xistence, 
46,  47,  457-471  ;  the  scriptural 
argument,  471-488;  argument 
from  analogy  and  expediency, 
489-506. 

Julius,  Pope,  171. 

Justin  Martyr,  his  term  for  a  pastor, 
319,  320. 

Key-s,  symbolism  of,  256,  443-446. 

Kirk,  48. 

Knox,  John,  "notes  of  the  true 
Church,"  64-66;  particularized 
the  term  "  Church,"  66  ;  insti- 
tuted rotary  eldership,  347. 

Ladd,  Dr.,  288. 

Lambert,  366,  367. 

Lampridius,  biographer  of  Alexan- 
der Severus,  402,  403. 

Lange,  158. 

"  Lay-elders,"  an  improper  term, 
298,  306,  321-324. 

Laying  on  of  hands,  different  script- 
ural meanings,  252,  253  ;  apos- 
tolic, to   confer   charisms.  203, 

262,  203,  419,420;  presbyterial, 
to  ordain  to  office,  204,  206,  262, 

263,  402,  411.  417-432;  chal- 
lenged by  early  Independents, 
448  ;  restored  in  Congregation- 
alism, 449. 

Lay-preaching,  137,  140-142. 

Le  Cierc,  55. 

Leo,  Pope,  171. 

Levites,    functions    of,  84—86,    341  ; 

popular  assent  to  consecration 

of,  404,  409,  410,  421. 
"  Levites,"  term  for  deacons  in  post- 

npostolic  Church,  266,  363. 
Libanius,  529. 
Liberius,  169. 

Licentiates,  testing  of,  408,  409. 
Lightfoot,  Bishop,  on    synagogues, 

89;    on   N.-T.  "bishops,"   245, 

248  ;  on  1  Tim.  5  :  17,  288. 
Linus,  163,  164. 


INDEX. 


655 


Liturgy,  classical  origin  and  use  of 
term,  526  ;  apostolic  transfer  of 
tlie  idea  to  the  Christian  minis- 
try, 526,  527  ;  modern  ecclesias- 
tical sense  unscriptural,  530, 
632  ;  true  scriptural  sense,  530, 
531:  true  elements,  532-534. 

Liturgy,  Gallican,  528. 

Liturgies,  written,  post-Nicene  ori- 
gin of,  527-529. 

Lord's  Supper,  the,  privilege  of  bap- 
tized persons,  99  ;  terms  of  ad- 
mission, 99,  100  ;  judges  of  can- 
didates, 100;  examination  of 
ciindidatcs,  100-106;  objections 
to  examination  answered,  106- 
110;  actual  particij)ation  not  a 
prerequisite  for  sponsorship, 
115,  116;  a  liturgical  ordinance, 
525,  526. 

Luther,  allowed  hierarchy  in  Den- 
mark, 12;  negligent  of  formal 
discipline,  69;  difi'ered  with 
Calvin  on  terms  of  communion, 
101  ;  on  the  constituency  of  the 
Church,  135:  hypothesis  of  ordi- 
nation, 135,  201;  humility,  532. 

Lutheran  Church,  use  of  term 
"Church,"  66;  lacks  provision 
for  discipline,  68;  possesses 
chief  "  note  "  of  a  true  Church, 
69,  70;  on  deacons,  366,  367. 

MacKnight,  James,  Dr.  (on  1  Tim. 
5  :  17),  295. 

Madison,  Bishop,  consecration  of, 
198. 

Magdeburg  Centuriators,  on  elders, 
325. 

Magee,  Archbishop,  175. 

Magnesia,  312. 

Marriage,  civil  and  sacred,  538; 
ante-Nicene,  538,  539 ;  post- 
Kicene,  539;  under  Charle- 
magne, 539,  540;  under  the 
Reformation,  540,  541  ;  Direc- 
tory for  Worship,  541  ;  appro- 
priate ordinances,  541:  publi- 
cation, 542. 

Marly lin,  241. 

Mather,  Cotton,  on  ruling  elders, 
305  ;  on  discipline  in  the  Corin- 
thian church,  452. 

Matthias,  election  of,   132,  176,  410. 

Mcllvaine,  Bishop,  on  "angel,"  185, 
186. 


McMillan,  John,  530, 

"  Meeting-house,"  49. 

Melanchthon,  view  of  discipline,  69. 

Methodist  Episcopal,  or  Wesleyan, 
Church,  spiritual  life,  64; 
polity,  304,  340,  425;  ordina- 
tion,"423,  426. 

Metropolitans,  created  by  Constan- 
tino, 271. 

Michael  Glycas,  193. 

Miller,  Samuel,  Dr.,  on  sponsors, 
115;  protest  against  "lay- 
elder,"  306  ;  controversy  with 
Dr.  AVilson,  306-308;  Enaay  on 
ruling  elders,  332;  on  "the 
seven,"  364. 

Milton,  227. 

Ministerial  support,  238. 

"  Minister,"  of  the  synagogue,  370, 
397. 

Ministers,  of  the  word,  N.-T.  names 
for,  336  :  i>;irity  of,  46,  243-276  ; 
trial  of,  467. 

"  Ministry,"  527,  530,  531. 

Ministry:  Of  witness  (apostles), 
transient,  144-152,  214,  446. 
Of  gifts,  partly  transient,  144, 
213,  214;  partly  permanent, 
215-218.  Of  orders,  perma- 
nent, 144,  214,  219-226.  See 
tiucceKxion. 

Morrison,  195,  196. 

Moses,  "  read  in  the  svnagogues," 
82,  83. 

Mosheim,  Dr.,  on  "  the  seven,"  364. 

Natural  Religion,  13. 

Nature,  light  of,  how  authoritative, 
45-47. 

Neandcr,  underrated  ministry  of  or- 
ders, 227,  228. 

Nero,  168. 

Nice.     Sec  Council. 

Nicolaus  of  Rome,  254. 

"  Notes  of  the  true  Church,"  64-72. 

Offickhs  of  the  church,  election  of, 
127-I3(');  private  judgment  of, 
139,  140;  divine  calling  and 
duties,  143,  144;  classes,  144, 
145:  apostolic  and  transient, 
145-172;    permanent,   219-242. 

Onderdonk,  Bishop,  on  "angel," 
1X5,  186. 

"  Ordained  "  (Acts  14  :  23),  405-407. 


556 


INDEX. 


Ordinances  of  the  Church,  149,  623- 
546. 

Ordinatio,  comprehended  election 
and  laying  on  of  hands,  402. 

Ordination  to  office,  caution  in,  41  : 
the  act  of  presbytery,  44  :  com- 
parative unimportance  of  forms, 
201-203 :  transmuted  to  a  sacra- 
ment, 204;  apostolic  doctrine 
of,  205-207;  perversion  of,  216; 
not  monopolized  by  apostles, 
261,  262 ;  Scripture  model  of, 
265;  by  equals,  of  equals,  274; 
of  teaching  elder,  282 :  com- 
bines popular  and  official  acts, 
402,  403,  447,  448 ;  not  a  sacra- 
ment or  channel  of  grace,  403, 
418,  419,  422,  426-428;  com- 
prehends five  elements,  403, 
404 ;  popular  suffrage  or  con- 
sent, 404-415:  the  laying  on  of 
hands,  417-432  ;  of  deacon,  rul- 
ing elder,  teaching  elder,  425, 
426 ;  Presbyterian  recognition 
of  non-Presbyterian  ordination, 
428-430;  Methodist  Episcopal 
usage,  426 ;  Anglican  theory, 
428 ;  Roman  Catholic  theory, 
427,  430 ; Independent  and  Con- 
gregational usage,  500 ;  relation 
to  superior  ecclesiastical  courts, 
466. 

Origen,  his  Restorationism,  76  ;  con- 
ceded private  right  to  read 
the  Scriptures,  138  ;  licensed  to 
preach  before  ordination,  141  ; 
refers  to  ruling  elders,  324,  325 ; 
on  deacons,  366. 

Overtures,  510-512;  in  Church  of 
Scotland,  516. 

Owen,  John,  Dr.,  153;  distinguished 
and  approved  ruling  elders,  288, 
299,  305,  498,  499  ;  on  "  rota- 
tion "  of  elders,  347. 

Oxford  Tractarianism,  14. 

Palmer,  on  ordination,  207,  430. 

Papal  succession  refuted,  161-172. 

Papias,  319. 

Parish,  as  constituted  by  Constan- 
tine,  270. 

Parity  of  ministers,  243-276  ;  de- 
monstration from  Scripture, 
243-249  ;  in  admitting  to  full 
communion,  243-255 ;  in  dis- 
cipline, 255-261  ;   in  ordaining 


to  office,  261-265  ;  in  preaching, 
265-267  ;  in  jurisdiction,  267- 
276. 

Parker,  Archbishop,  irregular  con- 
secration of,  195. 

Passover,  SO,  107. 

Pastor,  election  of,  128-130  ;  import 
of  term,  237 ;  permanence  of 
relation,  237-242,  359 ;  divine 
appointment  of  the  office,  229  ; 
its  identity  in  the  N.  T.  with 
that  of  bishop,  273. 

Patmos,  162. 

Patriarchs,  created  by  Constantine, 
271. 

Patrick,  Bishop  (on  Ezek.  43  :  11, 
12),  34,  35. 

Paul,  his  qualification  for  apostle- 
ship,  151  ;  eminence,  157;  call 
does  not  imply  a  succession  of 
apostles,  177",  178;  use  of  the 
term  "apostles,"  178-180;  pre- 
latic  succession  from  him  un- 
traceable, 194,  195;  his  ordi- 
nation, 221,  265;  identities 
"  elders  "  and  "  bishops,"  245- 
247  :  relegates  process  of  disci- 
pline to  Corinthian  elders,  259- 
261  ;  relation  to  Timothy,  202, 
203,  262,  263  ;  at  the  Council  of 
Jerusalem,  486. 

Pearson,  Bishop,  248,  315. 

Peter,  alleged  primacy  refuted,  152- 
160  ;  191  ;  alleged  papal  succes- 
sion from,  refuted,  161-172: 
speech  at  Matthias's  election, 
176;  also  an  elder,  228,  247, 
248,  319  ;  investiture  with  the 
keys,  444 ;  at  the  Council  of 
Jerusalem,  486. 

Philip,  261,  362,  363. 

Pliilippi,  baptisms  at,  116. 

Philo,  on  the  synagogue,  83,  84, 

Phoebe,  a  deaconess,  378-383. 

Photius,  against  confirmation  by 
diocesan   bishop,  254. 

Plato,  257,  484. 

Pliny,  380. 

Polycarp,  identifies  elders  and  bish- 
ops, 316;  on  duties  of  elders, 
316,  'Ml :  on  deacons,  366. 

Popcrt/,    Viiriitfions  of,  20. 

Potter,  Archbishop,  288. 

Prayer,  should  be  spontaneous,  46; 
a  liturgical  ordinance,  525,  534, 
536,  541,  543,  544;  post-Nicene 


INDEX. 


557 


uniformity,  529  :  John  McMil- 
lan's, 530  ;  requires  premedita- 
tion, 530-532  ;  unavailing  for 
the  dead,  544,  545. 

Preaching,  test  of  a  true  Church,  65  ; 
distinguished  from  teaching, 
338  ;  a  liturgical  ordinance,  525, 
541,  543 ;  requires  premedita- 
tion, 631-534.  See  Lay-preach- 
htg. 

Preaching-friars,  142. 

Prelacy,  has  no  warrant  in  the  New 
Testament,  282,  2S3.  American, 
derivation  of,  194,  197-199. 
Anglican,  at  first  political,  173. 

Prelatical  succession,  refutation  of, 
173-200. 

Presbyter,  or  elder,  convertible  with 
bishop,  207-210;  successors  to 
apostles,  193,  194;  permanent 
officers,  229,  230.     See  Elders. 

Presbyter-bishop,  224  ;  superseded 
by  diocesan  bishop,  216.  See 
Bishop. 

Presbyterian  polity,  divine  right  of, 
37-47. 

Presbyterianism,  unchurched  by 
prelacy,  174,  175;  Directory  of, 
348 ;  interrelation  of  churches 
in,  490-492  ;  compared  with  In- 
dependency, 494-497. 

Presbyteries,  original  and  present 
relation  to  overtures,  510-512. 

Presbytery,  collective  of  district 
churches,  49,  505;  in  1  Tim. 
4  :  14,  262-265 ;  in  Ignatius's 
time,  313-315;  judicatory  in 
gradation,  457;  relation  to 
Synod  and  General  Assembly, 
509,  510;  a  name  for  the  co- 
lonial General  Assembly,  508, 
619;  reconstruction  in  Church 
of  Scotland,  515,  516. 

Prevoost,  Bishop,  consecration  of, 
198. 

Prideau.\,  Dean,  on  the  synagogue, 
83. 

Priest,  not  a  scriptural  term  of 
office  in  the  Christian  Church, 
29,  226,  227,  390,  391,  402,  407, 
615. 

Priesthood,  accomplished  in  Christ, 
81,  226;  application  of  the 
term  to  all  believers,  12,  227, 
403,  404. 

Priestly,  Joseph,  448. 


Private  judgment,  right  of,  137-140. 

Probation,  after  death,  492,  501 ; 
ended  by  death,  542. 

Probation  of  candidates  for  ordina- 
tion, 265,  408,  409. 

Process,  may  be  instituted  against 
the  baptized,  as  well  as  full 
communicants,  117,  118;  in  the 
Corinthian  Church,  259,  345. 

Profession,  made  in  baptism,  67, 
118,  123. 

Prophets,  in  the  New  Testament, 
213-215. 

Propitiation,  an  element  in  true 
church  ordinances,  524,  526. 

Proseuchfe,  82,  83. 

Purgatory,  origin  of  doctrine,  645. 

Puritanism,  460,  461. 

Puseyism,  14,  15. 

Quakers.     See  Friends. 

Reading  the  Scriptures,  private 
right  of,  137-139;  liturgical  or- 
dinance, 525,  532,  543. 

Reference,  from  Antioch  presbytery 
to  council  at  Jerusalem,  479- 
488. 

Reformation,  checked  by  state  in- 
fluences, 173;  neglected  to  re- 
construct the  diaconate,  392, 
393 ;  restored  free  representa- 
tive councils,  515. 

"Reformed"  Church,  discipline  of, 
357. 

Reformers,  indifference  to  Church 
polity,  12. 

Regionary  deacons,  371. 

Religion  in  education,  126. 

Remonstrants,  517. 

Reordination,  428-430. 

Representation,  a  principle  of  Church 
government,  46,  47;  in  judica- 
tories in  gradation,  497,  498;  its 
loss  and  restoration,  515. 

Revealed  religion  involves  forms,  13. 

Ring,  in  marriage,  542. 

Robespierre,  13. 

Robinson,  Edward,  55. 

Robinson.  John,  448. 

Rome,  162,  167-170. 

Rome,  Church  of,  in  England,  14; 
sects  in,  19,  20;  declared  no 
true  Church  of  Christ,  64-66,  7 1, 
72 ;  ordination,  430. 


558 


INDEX. 


Rulers  in  the  Church,  of  divine  ap- 
pointment, 442. 

Rutherford,  commissioner  to  West- 
minster Assembly,  347. 

Sacraments,  Reformers'  doctrine, 
12;  corruption  of,  29  :  test  of  a 
true  Church,  65,  67,  70;  true 
nature  of,  108;  Anglican  defini- 
tion, 427. 

"  Sacrament  of  orders,"  427. 

Sanctitication,  545. 

Sanhedrin,  314,  315.  484, 

Saybrook  platform,  460.' 

Sclileusner,  55. 

Scotland,  Reformed  Church  of,  515, 
516. 

Scots'  Confession,  64,  65. 

Scripture  examples,  when  binding, 
43-45. 

Scriptures,  the  Holy,  private  right 
to,  137-139;  liturgical  use  of, 
525,  532,  543.  See  Word  of 
God. 

Seabury,  Bishop,  consecration  of, 
198. 

Seeker,  Archbishop,  196,  197. 

Sectarian  divisions,  evil  and  good, 
61-64. 

Selden,  405,  541. 

Session,  a  council  of  teaching  and 
ruling  elders,  226;  the  judica- 
tory of  a  particular  church, 
433,  505 ;  its  relation  to  the 
superior  courts,  509,  510;  its 
reconstruction  in  Church  of 
Scotland,    515,    516. 

Sine  tSttilo  ordination,  allowed  by 
Presbyterian  Church,  415,  416. 

Singing,  a  liturgical  ordinance,  525, 
543.  544. 

Smith,  Samuel  Stanhope,  415. 

Socinianism,  71,  464,  492. 

South,  531. 

Sozomon,  on  deacons,  366. 

Sponsors,  extent  of  privilege,  114; 
prerequisite  qualification,  114- 
117. 

Stationary  deacons,  371. 

Stephen,  362,  363. 

Stillingfleet,  Bishop,  on  the  syna- 
gogue, 89. 

Stoddard,  101. 

Stretching  out  the  hand,  gesture  in 
voting,  402,  405,  406,  411,  414, 
417,  447. 


Subdeacon,  270,  371,  396. 

Succession  in  the  ministry,  true 
channel  of,  131  :  the  true  doc- 
trine of,  201-218;  essentials, 
ability  and  faithfulness,  203, 
205,  213,  214,  216,  217;  order 
transmitted  through  presbyters, 
207-209 :  exact  order  unessen- 
tial, ;ind  untraceable  in  history, 
20,  210,  211:  commission  in- 
volved, 211,  212.  See  Papal 
Succession  and  Prelatical  Suc- 
cession. 

Suffrage,  popular,  for  church  officers, 
distinction  between  civil  and  ec- 
clesiastical franchise,  127,  128, 
143;  theocratic  type,  128,404; 
right  of  baptized  church-mem- 
bers, 127-136,  404,  405,  409, 
410;  prerequisite  qualifica- 
tions, 128-130;  permanence  of 
result,  350  ;  practiced  in  apos- 
tolic and  ante-Nicene  Church, 
405-408,  410-413;  primitive 
mode,  by  stretching  out  the 
hand,  402,  406,  414;  viva  voce 
mode  ordered  by  councils,  414  ; 
by  expressed  or  implied  assent, 
360,  404,  417. 

Summerfield,  532. 

Sunda3'-school,  under  ruling  elders, 
355,  356. 

Synagogue,  a  synonym  of  ecclesia, 
49;  use  in  James,  49,  14  9;  in 
LXX.,  49,  55,  82;  classical  and 
patristic  use,  82 ;  antiquity  of, 
82-84 ;  presumably  of  divine 
institution,  84-90,  300  ;  perpet- 
uated in  the  New-Testament 
ecclesia,  81,  402,  403;  in  the 
Presbyterian  system,  94,  95; 
approved  by  Christ,  90,  91  ;  by 
apostles,  91,  279,  280 ;  con- 
formed to  Christian  dispensa- 
tion, 90-94.  149,  360,  484;  in 
organization  and  service  model 
for  Christian  church,  11,  81, 
203,  214,  244,  351,  355,  358,  359, 
412,  446  ;  deacons  of,  361  ;  Phi- 
lo  and  Josephus  on,  S3,  84; 
Prideaux  on,  83  ;  Lightfoot  and 
Stillingfleet  on,  89;  Wh.ately  on, 
92;  Vitringa  on,  297. 

Synod,  a  judicatory  in  gradation, 
457  ;  relation  to  General  Assem- 
bly  and   Presbytery,  509,  610; 


INDEX. 


559 


reconstruction  in  Church  of  Scot- 
land, 515,  5]li;  a  name  for  the 
colonial  General  A.ssetubly,  5(18, 
519:  of  New  York  and  Phila- 
delphia, stipulation  of,   610. 

Synods,  in  time  of  Constantine,  270. 

Switzerland,  Reformed  Church  of, 
on    deacons,    367. 

Teaching,  distinguished  from 
preaching,     S.TH. 

Temple  service,  typical  and  tem- 
porary, SO,  81 ;  abolished  by 
Christ,    81,    91. 

Tertullian,  his  Montanism,  7fi ;  on 
the  constituency  of  the  Church, 
135;  on  Peter,  159;  on  the  el- 
dership, 412  ;  on  marriage,  538  ; 
on  the  death  of  martyrs,  545. 

Testimonial  de.acons,  371. 

Thanksgiving,  a  liturgical  ordi- 
nance,   525,    526,    544. 

Theodoret,  190.  195. 

Thirty-nine  Articles,  68. 

Thomas,  191. 

Three  orders  in  the  ministry,  not 
scriptural,   81,   265,   366. 

Thucydides.  257. 

Tillotson,  Archbishop,  196,  197. 

Timothy,  gift  of,  203,  204,  262;  or- 
dination of,  204,  262-265;  not 
a  diocesan  bishop,  but  an  evan- 
gelist, 271-276. 

TitnU,  241. 

Titus,  not  a  diocesan  bishop,  but  au 
evangelist,  271-275. 

Tractarianism,  14. 

Trajan,  380. 

Tralles,  312. 

Trent.     See  Council. 

Trustees,  368. 

Turretine,  153. 

Tychicus,  276. 

Tyndal,  48,  366. 

Unifokmity  in  Church  service,  ori- 
gin of,  629 ;  not  required  in 
Scripture,    531. 

Urim  and  Thummim,  17. 

Ursinus,  on  baptism,  67. 


Ussher,  Archbishop,  288,  315. 

Vestrymen,  303. 
Vigilius,  169. 
Virgil,  153. 
Vitringa,  297-299,  405. 

Wake,  Archbishop,  315. 

Waldenses,  had  ruling  elders,  332; 
on  deacons,  366. 

Wardens,  303. 

AVardlaw,  Dr.,  289,  290. 

Washington,  analogy  of  subdivision 
of  labor  at,  223. 

Watts,  Dr.,  534. 

Wesleyans.   See  Methodist  Episcopal. 

Westminster  Assembly,  its  princi- 
ples of  divine  right  in  Church 
polity,  39-47 ;  adopted  Second 
Book  of  Discipline,  347,  348; 
debate  between  Presbytery  and 
Independency,  494;  constitu- 
tion and  authority  of,  516,  517. 
See   Directory  for    Worship. 

Whately,  Archbishop,  92. 

Whitaker.  Dr.,  2S8. 

Whitby,  Dr.,  248,  288. 

White,  Bishop,  consecration  of,  198; 
on  primitive  deacons,  367. 

Wickliffc,  on  deacons,  366. 

Widows  (1  Tim.  5  :  3),  382-388. 

Wiseman,  Cardinal,  on  alleged  pri- 
macy of  Peter,  159. 

William  IV.,  14. 

Wilson,  James  P.,  Dr.,  controversy 
with  Dr.  Miller  on  elders,  306- 
308. 

Word  of  God  truly  preached  and 
freely  read,  cardinal  mark  of 
a    true   Church,   65-72. 

Worship,  public,  duality  of,  in  0.  T., 
unity  of,  in  N.  T.,  80,  81 :  order 
in,  397  ;  ordinances  of,  149,  523, 
524. 

ZosiMUS,  169. 

Zwingli,  on  discipline,  68,  69  ;  dif- 
fered with  Calvin  on  terms  of 
communion,  101. 


INDEX   OF   GREEK   WORDS. 


'AvytXos,  183. 

'Ava^oinvpeiv,  262. 

'Avdfios,  414. 

'AvTiA^i/ftiS,  379. 

•Afios,  414. 

'AjrdffToAor,  183;  dirdirroAoi,  189. 

ruvotKay,  381. 

Aid,  263  ;   Sid  7rpo(^7)Tet'a5,  262. 
AtaKOvelv  TpoTre'faiy,  367. 

AidKovot,  360,  370,  380,  381. 

AtScUtTlKOV,    335. 

Ai£aKToi,  336. 
AiKai'bi^ia,   524. 
Aoyfto.ra,  482. 
AoKfia,  484. 
AoOAos,   360. 

'ExKXjjo'ia,  55,  103. 

'ESeTo,  441. 

'Ev  iKfivrjTJj  r]ij.ipa,  474. 

'ETtKTKOITOVVreK,   247. 

*E7i-i(r«d7rous,  245. 

'Hy^o/Ltai,  257. 
'VLyovjxtvoi,  o,  364. 

©epdTTioi',  360. 

KoAis,  293,  296. 

KaTaAt-ye'cr^M,  384. 

KOTTltOI'TC"?,    293, 

Ku^fpr^ueis,  442. 
Kvpiaxd;,  4S. 


AeiToupyous,  531. 

MdAio-Ta,  290,  291. 
MtTd,  263. 
Mox^os,  293. 

Necu'icDcoi,  361. 
Nc<oTepoi,  361. 

OlKo&oiiTiaut,  159. 
'Ofiei^iov,  364. 

nepto-eroTepov,  293. 
HeTpo,  158. 
Ilerpoj,   158. 

IIoLjLtCuVu>,     257. 

HoAAd,  293. 
npe<r|8uT6ptoi',  264. 
npeo-^wTepot,  309,  361. 
npeo-^v'repoi  TrpocrTdres,  321. 
npoe(7Ti)9,  320. 
npoeerriTes,  292,  295. 
npoiVrij/ixi,  257. 

SuvaywyTJ,  55,  82. 
2(i/oia,  459. 

TauTjj,  169. 

Tifx^s,  293,  294. 

•YTnjpe'Tijf,  360,  370. 

XeipoSeerta,  402,  411,  417. 
XeipoTOi'rJo-ai'Tes,  405. 
XcipoTcia,  402,  411,  417. 


SCRIPTURE  PASSAGES  PAHTICULAELY  DISCUSSED. 


Isaiah  33  :  20-22,  32-34. 

Matt.  16  :  18,  157-169. 

Matt.  18  :  17,  54,  55. 

Matt.  28  :  18-20,  130-132,  211,  212. 

Acts  2:47,  102,  103. 

Acts  14  :  23,   132,  447. 

Acts  20  :  28,  245. 

Rom.  16  :  1,  2,  378-381. 

1  Cor.  12  :  28,  36,  37,  143,  441,  442. 

2  Cor.  10:  13,  192. 
Phil.  1  :  1,  245. 

1  Tim.  3  :  2,  335,  336. 

560 


1  Tim.  3  :  11,  381,  382. 
1  Tim.  4  :  14,  262-265. 
1  Tim.  5:3-16,  382-388. 

1  Tim.  5  :  17,  290-299. 

2  Tim.  1  :  6,  203,  204,  262. 
2  Tim.  2  :  2,  206,  206. 
Tit.  1  :  6,  246. 

Heb.  13  :  24,  442. 
1  Pet.  5  :  12,    247. 

Rev.    1:20;    2:1,   etc.    ("angel"), 
183-186. 


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